Pyrotechnics
by Stealth Dragon
Summary: Vacations usually don't involve attacks by space pirates, emergency crash landings, wild fires, and saving the day when you're already injured.
1. Alien Houdini

**Pyrotechnics**

by

Stealth Dragon

Rating – T, because I be wicked mean to Shep, and some language.

Disclaimer – I do not own Stargate Atlantis. If I did, there would be more whump, and Sherbet.

Synopsis – Vacations usually don't involve attacks by space pirates, emergency crash landings, wild fires, and saving the day when you're already injured. Team fic minus Teyla but plus that ever insufferable little alien rodent Sherbet. Written for challenge #7 down at the Sheppard H/C in LJ. I normally don't take part in challenges but the prompts had slapped a pretty nifty idea in my head that I couldn't resist, and I've been rather unhappy with the fics I've been writing lately. All too dark and I'm a bit jaded on the dark fics.

Challenge #7 prompt – Element: Fire. Line: Where the hell are you going with that, Colonel? Theme: Blood & broken bones. Yummers.

SGA

"Where the hell are you going with that, Colonel?"

John both winced and cringed. It wasn't because he'd been caught, but because he'd been caught by McKay who always managed to sound smug even when he was scared or pissed. He was particularly thick with the self-satisfaction whenever he thought he'd caught John doing something he wasn't supposed to. It was a little juvenile, and it wasn't even that Rodney liked a reason to rat John out. The physicist just liked to think he had John pegged; on what, exactly, John wasn't sure.

"Well?" McKay pressed in that wheedling voice of his – condescending and know-it-all. "Because the Daedalus doesn't exactly have any ideal spots for a picnic."

John jerked his arm adjusting the satchel full of fruit higher up his shoulder before turning around to face Rodney with much forced patience. A man could only take Kirk-related accusations so far.

"Rodney," John said, giving him a blistering grin. "Do you really think so little of me? Ever think all this is just for lil' old me?"

McKay folded his arms. "No."

"That's because you suck," John said. He adjusted the strap again when it tried to slide down his arm. The bag thumped against his ridiculously tender ribs and he clamped his mouth shut to stifle a yelp. "And proves that you think so little of me. You didn't even take into consideration that I might have a vitamin deficiency."

"No, but I have taken into consideration that birds have been eating more than you, lately, giving sudden changes in dietary habits cause to be suspicious over. Fess up, Colonel. I've seen you sneaking food you barely even touch out of the mess. Are you hording for the winter or developed a sudden aversion to eating in public?"

John made his gaze go hooded. "Anyone ever tell you that you talk too much, McKay?"

"All the time. Spill it, Sheppard. What are you up to?"

John thumped his casted arm against his thigh, then gave the relatively empty Daedalus corridor a surreptitious once over, craning his neck to peer over Rodney's shoulder to see if anyone was coming. "Since I know you're just going to keep riding my ass about it," John said, peering over his own shoulder, "I'll level with you." He moved forward and leaned in toward Rodney's ear.

"Sherbet snuck on board."

The response from Rodney was predictable – a toss up of the hands and a roll of the eyes. "Of course. See? This is why we had the cat cage brought in. Cat cages are a hell of a lot harder to open than Atlantis' doors..."

"I put him in the cat cage," John said.

Rodney's eyebrows arched. "Oh. Well, then, we need to have animal tranquilizers brought in – the small stuff, pill form or powder to mix into his food... Where's the little pack rat now?"

John jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "My quarters. Rodney, I'm trusting you not to tell anyone he's here, Caldwell especially."

"Well, you do know that with his penchant for imitating Houdini, Sherbet's going to get found out eventually. Then there's also that little set back of bringing him to a planet that tend to be tightwads about people stowing foreign animals on board."

The blood rushed from John's head to his feet. "You don't think they'd kill him?"

"Well, the SGC isn't exactly an airport, but still..." Rodney paled slightly. "The local zoologists might take a keen interest in him."

Which was why they always tried to make sure Sherbet was left locked in someone's quarters during away missions. The biologists had been circling like vultures ever since Sherbet was taken in. It wasn't everyday that Elizabeth caved to the age old 'can we keep him.' Actually, it was the only time, since there was actually no reason _not_ to keep the mir'ka. The biologists only got to keep what they found if they vowed to return it to the wild or dissect it. And since Mir'ka's were so blasted easy to domesticate and get attached to, Sherbet was the only one permitted in Atlantis.

"They wouldn't need much of an excuse to grab him," Rodney went on. "Check for alien diseases and what not."

John perked and snapped his fingers. "Ah! But he's already been checked over. No diseases, not even any damn alien fleas. They've got nothing on him."

Rodney snorted. "Oh, yeah, like that's going to stop them. If you want my advice, Colonel, I'd confess and plead diplomatic immunity for the little guy. I mean he's just as much a Pegasus galaxy representative as Ronon – despite his inability to speak any English. And you don't hear the SGC demanding paperwork proving that Ronon's had all his shots. Having four legs and a tail should not exempt him from being shown the same courtesy that we show the majority of lifeforms who drop by."

John straightened as much as his ridiculously tender ribs would let him. "Yeah, exactly!"

"Sherbet has every right _not_ to be tested and dissected."

"Damn straight."

They both fell silent for a drawn out moment.

"Soooo..." John said after that moment. "We tell them tomorrow?"

"And make sure to act all surprised, like you just found him."

John pointed at Rodney. "Gotcha." He then turned to continue his mission of providing sustenance to one over intelligent and high-maintenance mir'ka. His limping gait jostled the satchel. The bananas prodded John's wounded side through the beige canvas material. He winced, trying to adjust the satchel without the use of his casted hand, when he had the satchel snatched from his shoulder.

Rodney slung the bag over his own shoulder. "You're going to break something again."

John sagged in relief. "Thanks Rodney."

"Yeah, thank me after we're not thrown in the brig for organic contraband."

On arriving at John's room and entering they were greeted by a hyperactive fur-ball ablaze with the colors of red, orange, and yellow. Sherbet leaped up a good five feet off the ground at John, then at Rodney, his bushy lemur tail twice the length of his little body silently slapping the floor on landing. He yeeped at them as he bounded back and forth while they made their way to the bed. Rodney deposited the satchel on the mattress, and John deposited himself on the edge, rubbing his sore chest.

"You all right?" Rodney asked. He opened the satchel that released the faint sweet oder of fruit, pulled a banana from it, and peeled it to break off chunks that Sherbet caught when tossed.

John shrugged, and winced for it. Carrying the satchel had been a bad idea and his body was now letting him know it. Not just in aches and pains but also a struggling heart and slightly labored breathing as though he'd return to his room at a run. "I'll admit I've had better days. But worse days too. I'm kind of somewhere in between." He was startled by having an apple shoved into his hands.

"Eat," Rodney commanded, dropping onto the edge of the bed on the other side of the satchel. He tossed a chunk of banana into the air that Sherbet leaped up to catch. "Your appetite is half your problem right there. Seriously, you go weeks half-starved longing for a Happy Meal then come home and refuse to take more than three bites of a power bar. Maybe it's just my naivety concerning the eating habits of skinny people, but that's just messed up."

"It is messed up." John took a small bite of red apple. "Even Carson says so. Not exactly in those terms, though. The way he puts it, it's like my body doesn't know what it wants anymore. It needs food but doesn't want to put up with the whole tiresome digesting process." John rubbed at the ache accumulating between his eyes. "Sleep now, eat later, that's what it's telling me."

Rodney huffed. "All you do is sleep."

"Yeah. Walking in the equivalent of the Bataan Death March for nearly three weeks will do that to you."

Two weeks and four days to be precise, and a hell of a two weeks and four days they had been. Stops had been only two hours during the night, and a half an hour during the day to dish out watery curds and way that sustained the body enough to keep it going.

It had all been one big setup. The Fadeeshans had heard from the Genii and other sources that the 'Lanteans had Ancestor technology and the means by which to use it. They'd been open to trade to see if these rumors were true, then sprung their true nature when they found out it was. All it had taken was for the leader casually toying with what looked like a decorative knick-knack to toss the piece of junk in John's direction. John had caught it on instinct. The device then reacted on its own mechanical instinct by starting to glow and hum. John had tossed it back, negotiations continued, and all hell didn't break loose until the team had been heading back.

The Fadeeshans moved damn fast when they wanted to. They'd hit John with a poison dart that laid him flat. He woke up in a dungeon only to be immediately hustled into a vehicle smaller than a VW Bug, and driven out into the Fadeeshan waste lands to march and march until his feet started to bleed. John had to grudgingly admit it hadn't been a bad ploy. With John out of the city, his team couldn't find him to rescue him. Elizabeth was forced to negotiate, then used the negotiations to keep the Fadeeshans busy while John's team sought him out.

It wasn't John's team that had saved him, it had been his gradual deterioration in health, and a completely idiotic mistake on the Fadeeshans' part.

Someone had gone a little heavy with the poison that had knocked John out. The poison had made him sick, and with no chance to make a full recovery, he'd been thrust into a march - ill and disoriented - meant to wear criminals down to docile levels. The prisoners had taken advantage of him, attacking him, stealing his jacket and shoes. Stumbling into nettles and bear rocks cut up his feet, leading to infection, increasing his illness. John had pretty much been dieing on his feet, although he wouldn't deny that it wasn't a bad way to go. When the Fadeeshans had finally gotten their greedy heads out of their asses to take notice, John wasn't even on his feet anymore. He vaguely recalled having been dragged, then left for dead until a guard was sent to retrieve him. Bargaining chips weren't much use if they weren't breathing.

The Fadeeshans had panicked and, thinking that a beating heart meant all bets weren't quite off, handed John back with a thousand apologies and excuses concerning desperate times and desperate measures. And so concluded John's adventure in Fadeesha. The rest had become lost in a drugged haze that pushed back the agony of numerous broken bones and sliced up feet. All he knew, and needed to know, was that he was home and safe.

Rodney's eyes went glassy. "Obviously." He tossed the remainder of the banana to Sherbet. "Which is why the mandatory vacation thing is a little premature. Elizabeth should have pushed us all into it when you were more self sufficient. Sayyyy... when you don't need to shower with a plastic bag over your arm."

John smiled around his next bite of apple. "Stay honest, Rodney, and just say you didn't want to come."

"I did, she didn't listen, and it's all the fault of your invalid condition. Does she honestly believe you'll heal any better on Earth?"

"This vacation isn't just about me, _Rodney_."

Rodney grunted something unintelligible, then dug through the bag for an apple of his own. Elizabeth had been talking earth-side leave time way before the incident with the Fadeeshans. Camping on the mainland wasn't enough, according to her, and Heightmeyer had backed her up. John suspected Elizabeth had a secret paranoia of the senior staff developing resentments toward earth that would eventually build toward alienating themselves. The SGC had been giving Elizabeth and the rest enough grief to make the paranoia reasonable, were that the case. But _if_ that were the case, then she really needed to take into account fast food, movies, video games, skate parks, and oceans full of already known dangers easy to avoid. John may not have anything in terms of a life on earth to go back there permanently, but there were plenty of reasons to still think of it as home.

The apparent reason for a vacation was the Fadeeshan incident having brought everyone to their breaking point. John had heard Carson chewing Rodney up and spitting him out about his coffee consumption leading to no proper sleep.

"So," Rodney flatly began. "You never told me if you had any particular plans you'd like to see come to fruition during this vacation. So what'll it be – hobbling around Disney World staring at the rides in longing, or along the beach staring at the ocean the same way?" His tone of voice clearly implied his disfavor at having been forcefully volunteered into being John's and Ronon's 'baby-sitter' for the duration. John wasn't exactly in any condition to be getting around anywhere on his own, and it was common consent that staying at the SGC tended to be rather depressing – like living in an over-sized bomb shelter.

"Neither, seeing as we'll be staying at your place," John replied. "Hope you have a damn good movie collection beyond Star Trek, because I doubt I'll be up for any sight seeing."

"Yeah, but Ronon will and I'm not taking that trigger happy gorilla out by myself. We'll keep things simple, go to the movies and whatever cow-farm-harvest festival that happens to be going on. I've done enough traveling to know there's some fair going on somewhere. Not usually my cup of tea but the funnel cakes are always worth it. Oh, and every one I've driven past always had a ferris wheel or two. A ride you can actually ride without worrying about your spine dislocating, and your favorite as you like to remind us over and over – so score one for you."

John grinned. Behind all the obnoxious yammering and self-righteous know-it-allism, Rodney really wasn't a bad guy. The guy cared, he just didn't like anyone knowing it.

John polished off the rest of his apple and set it on the floor for Sherbet to gnaw on. Truth be told, John was looking forward to this little respite trip. He could use the distraction of Earth-made trivialities such as movies and ferris wheels. A little fantasy to numb the majority of his reality. His mind kept trying to drift back – awake and in dreams – to the endless march over ground that had been cold beneath his bare feet, then warm when his feet wouldn't stop bleeding. In dreams he felt the fists that had pummeled him just to take his boots, and the cold, ravenous gnaw in the pit of his hollow stomach. The hunger had hurt, but not as bad as the thirst, and the vomiting the product of a severe infection.

John's skin twitched in a shudder as though a fly had landed on his back. He'd thought every organ in his body was going to be expelled as he puked up his eating attempts and acid.

"We'll see what I'm up to when we get there," John said. "Right now I just want to get there, and spend the first couple of days crashing on anything soft."

"So pretty much do what you're doing now?"

John shrugged. "Pretty much. It's not the same when you're on a spaceship tripping through wraith infested space. There's always that nagging concern of something popping up in hyperspace to give everyone a bad day."

"You worry too much," Rodney said, though the conviction behind the words was incredibly lax. He bit off the last area of apple still covered by skin and stood. "I'll leave you to your nap time. And don't worry about Sherbet. As long as he doesn't bite anyone then he won't end up with the 9th grade biology-happy zoologists."

John lifted an eyebrow. "9th grade? Frogs?"

"Try fetal pigs."

John grimaced. "Oh yeah."

"Just keep the little spaz out of sight until you're either up to confessing or I finally break and do it first."

John gave him a thumbs up. "Will do."

Rodney headed out in the wake of the crunch of a bitten apple. John scooted back and swiveled around to lay himself out gingerly on his bed. He closed his eyes, then snapped them back open on realizing that his room had gone too quiet. He rolled enough so he could turn his head for a look at the floor without putting pressure on his flank. He saw the half-gnawed apple core, but no Sherbet.

SGA

Technically, Rodney wasn't on vacation until he was beamed from the Daedalus to Earth. So technically, he wasn't on vacation. If he could contribute in some way to the smooth running of the Daedalus, then he would, since technically he could. The only set back was the Daedalus didn't exactly need any assistance. So, technically, he was currently useless.

McKay didn't do useless. If he could wheedle Hermiod into increasing power output to get this billion dollar space bucket moving faster, then he would. Hermiod was a tight wad when it came to power consumption. His condescending refusal to 'step on the gas' kept sending Rodney into flashbacks of family vacations and his father's cold refusal to turn on the A/C. If the man had just done the math he would have realized that air conditioning was a hell of a lot cheaper than stopping at every gas station and fast food joint for water.

"Hermiod!" Rodney said, striding up to the Asgard's station. "If it isn't my favorite Martian."

Black almond eyes narrowed at Rodney's approach. "Dr. McKay, this is the third time I have had to remind you that I am not from the world your people have deemed 'Mars'."

Rodney flapped his hand indifferently. "Figure of speech. So, how're the engines?" He folded his arms on top of Hermiod's station and smiled pleasantly.

Hermiod's eyes were black slivers of indignation. "The engines are fine. No need to increase power output and put undue stress on the hyperdrives."

Rodney's smile remained plastered while his body went rigid. "Two percent is not going to..."

"Dr. McKay, there is no reason to increase power even to one percent. Our current speed is regulation level, and unless Col. Caldwell sees it necessary to go above that for emergency purposes, I have no intentions of increasing power, not even to point one percent."

McKay had never determined if the little Asgard's talent for sarcasm was a personality trait or the negative side-affect of hanging around humans for too long. Rodney recalled having seen O'Niel do a double take at one of Hermiod's caustic responses. Humans were a bad influence on the rest of the galaxy – two galaxies.

Hermiod ended the conversation by reverting his attention back to the console.

McKay could have gone the stubborn route and wait the Asgard out, staring, drumming his fingers loudly on the console, making obnoxious humming noises. Instead, Rodney decided to be the better species and back off. That, and being annoyingly persistent didn't work as well on alien life forms. They either passively ignored it or promised violence.

Rodney turned with the intent to leave in a huff. He saw Novak backed into a corner with both hands raised like the victim in a holdup, minus a gunman. She was wide eyed, shaking, whimpering and her body kept jerking with the hiccups. Her assailant was sitting back on his tiny haunches, whipping his ludicrously long tail back and forth. Sherbet answered each of Novak's hiccups with a yeep like a verbal game of catch.

Rodney's heart shot up into his throat. "Oh crap." He hurried over and snatched Sherbet up into his arms. "Damn it, Novak! If you're going to let yourself be cornered by animals no bigger than your foot, you can at least scream or squeal or something to make the rest of us aware. Crap, I would honestly hate to see the outcome of you being cornered by a kitten or a rabbit."

Novak, apparently, hadn't heard a word Rodney said when she pointed a pale, rigid finger at Sherbet. "Wh-wh-wh-wha... Wha... What is... that..."

"Novak, will you relax. He wasn't going to latch onto your face and lay eggs in your chest if that's what you were worried about. And, seriously, no one's going to come to your rescue every time you freeze up in a panic. I..."

Sherbet leaped from Rodney's arms to go bounding with ribbony grace down the hall, leaving McKay gaping.

"Sherbet, what...?"

"Dr. McKay," said Hermiod. "The creature has escaped and is now in the corridor."

Rodney shot Hermiod a withering sneer as he rushed by. "You think?" He was pretty sure the Asgard had been goading him, as he'd never seen Hermiod grinning before.

Rodney tracked Sherbet down by following the trail of yelps, screams, and people pressing themselves into the wall. He saw Sherbet's blazing bright body dart around a corner. Rodney puffed out a frustrated breath and increased the speed of his stride.

"Sherbet! If you don't get your furry little ass back here now..." On turning the corner, Rodney skidded to a halt in time to avoid plowing into Sheppard's semi-broken body. Sheppard mimicked with a loud "Whoa!"

"Dang! Sheppard! Have you seen..." he looked down at the ball of fluff cradled to John's chest. "Oh, you have, never mind."

"I swear I didn't see him get out," John breathlessly explained. He was pale, breathing hard, and a little on the moist side around his hairline. "I just looked down and he was gone."

"Well, yeah, you so much as blink and he vanishes into thin air. Look, just get him back into your room before Caldwell sees him."

John nodded, then looked up, and his face went another shade whiter. "A _little_ premature with the warnings, Rodney."

Rodney swiveled around and felt his own face turn the color of snow. Murphy's Law had screwed them again – Caldwell as standing there with arms folded and stance rigid as rock.

"Gentlemen," he said. "A word." He made it a command, not a request.

------------------

TBC...

A/N: What you think? Exciting things will soon be afoot in the next chapter. Have patience, kiddies. And just so you know, I am not a technician, and technical things tend to make my brain fall asleep. I do not know the precise layout and workings of the Daedalus, so chances are good I might be off about something. Bear with me on it. It's not like we get a whole lot of the Daedalus on the show. The show is supposed to be about Atlantis, not the Daedalus.

Also, I do not use betas, but I do go over the chapters several times before posting. Yet I have found that, even with betas and several edits, there are the one or two spelling mistakes that always manage to slip by. That can be said of just about any story – even published works. Seriously, published works! Unless the mistakes are all over the place and horribly distracting, just try to ignore them.


	2. Intervention on Sherbet's Behalf

A/N: Hooray! The first chapter proved a success. But will the second live up to it? Thanks be to all who reviewed. The muses bow in a flourish to you.

Ch. 2

Elizabeth felt a little like an assistant principle. No, make that a parent. Maybe both since a parent was usually sitting beside the child, not standing a little off to the side, waiting for her turn to interrogate.

Caldwell was going to wear a hole in the floor with his rigid pacing, hands clasped behind the back, that made him more the parent than principle. Except he didn't know the two men he was laying into as well as Elizabeth did. Caldwell's voice wasn't loud, but it was strong enough to make the room vibrate as he lectured on the dangers of bringing alien creatures (not given clearance) onto his ship. What Sheppard chose to let enter Atlantis was his own problem, but this was Caldwell's ship, and there were protocols... So on and so forth.

He had yet to let either man explain themselves, which was Elizabeth's intent when she stepped in, cutting the lecture off. "Gentlemen," she said, moving within their line of sight. "What possessed you to bring an alien animal onto a ship heading to earth?" She already had a pretty good idea, she just wanted to hear it from them.

John was the one who replied. "We didn't. He got out of my room and must have followed me aboard. I didn't even notice he was here until two days out when I heard him sniffing around my quarters." He looked at Caldwell. "He's pretty good at hiding, sir."

Caldwell didn't buy it, Elizabeth could tell. Too bad since she knew with a certainty that it was the truth. Number one; John wasn't an idiot, he knew better than to bring anything alien into Atlantis or the Daedalus without clearing it first. Although Sherbet's arrival to Atlantis had been a heat of the moment affair what with John being dangerously ill at the time. Number two; Elizabeth now knew as much about Sherbet as she did the rest of her expedition team. The fox-faced, kitten-sized rodent knew how to get around.

"Look," Rodney jumped in. "It's not like it's that big of a deal. Sherbet's healthy, he's not carrying any diseases or fleas, and the biologists on Atlantis even gave him a rabies and distemper shot just to play it safe. The only reason he escapes is to find either me, John, or sometimes Teyla, and other than that pretty much sticks to one of us like a second shadow. So trust me when I say he won't be a problem on the Daedalus or earth... especially since he doesn't have the opposable thumbs needed to work dead bolts and other thumb-required locks."

"He's harmless, sir, and he's not going to get in anyone's way," John said. It was really hard to feel any sort of irritation toward Sheppard. Sheppard _and_ Rodney but mostly Sheppard. He looked exhausted, wrung out like he sometimes did after an alive-by-skin-of-their-teeth mission, the kind that left the entire team barely able to drag themselves to the infirmary. He wasn't even supposed to be standing with the condition his feet were still in. Elizabeth had offered him a chair, but John had refused. Probably a little foolish giving in to the ego like that, but Elizabeth respected his decision enough not to fight him on it and bash his already slightly battered dignity.

Standing near the healthy, broad shouldered and broad chested Caldwell made John look one pound away from emaciated, which couldn't be good for the self esteem.

Having Sherbet cradled in the Atlantis military commander's good arm like a stuffed animal won at a carnival was... odd, neither adding to nor taking away from John's current state. Actually, it was kind of cute with Sherbet an almost perfect ball in the crook of John's arm, tail swaying contentedly, and little black eyes heavy lidded. John's hold was tight without being crushing according to the tension in the shoulder of that arm. His hold on Sherbet was possessive. Any attempts to take the mir'ka away and there'd be violence, of that Elizabeth was sure.

Caldwell finally stopped pacing. "Why didn't you bring... Uh..." he gestured vaguely at Sherbet. "_Its_ presence to my attention."

John and Rodney exchanged helpless looks.

"Well..." John said.

"It was kind of sudden..." Rodney said.

"We were going to," said John. "Just... When the time felt right."

Caldwell's eyebrows lifted high forming creases in his forehead. "And when was that going to be? When we were on earth?"

"Before then," John replied with a sharp nod. "Definitely before then." He seemed to deflate into himself at Caldwell's penetrating look. The Daedalus commander had gone past berating to baiting in order to drag this little inquisition out for as long as possible. Elizabeth had come to realize that a common theme among all die hard, by the protocol book, high ranking military officers was sticking with protocol to the point of using it for their own vendetta. When they took something personally, they hid behind that protocol while enacting revenge.

Caldwell was taking all this personally. Elizabeth wasn't sure how exactly – maybe he saw Sheppard hiding Sherbet as an act to undermine his authority – she just knew, felt, that he was. He wasn't going to let either man go until they'd sweated every drop of moisture from their bodies.

"We were worried," John said, then cleared his throat. "I mean... I'm pretty sure you've heard the horror stories of what happens to animals people tried to smuggle through airports. It kind of made us, you know, hesitant."

"We didn't want him dissected," Rodney rapidly stated. "Or put to sleep. Or stuck in a plastic bag and forced to inhale exhaust fumes."

John's eyes widened in horror. "They do that?"

Rodney shrugged helplessly. "I heard Morrison in biology ranting about it. She sounded pretty pissed, I just thought she was over reacting..."

"Gentlemen," Caldwell snapped. His bearing remained stern while his tone wasn't quite as belligerent as before. "Whatever your reasoning, that doesn't excuse the fact that an alien being managed to stow away on my ship. Should anything go wrong because of that being, _both_ of you will be the ones held responsible."

"That's fine, sir," John said. "And just for the record, this is my fault, not Rodney's. He just found out today. I'm the one who's been hesitating."

Caldwell inclined his head. "Understood. Then you, Colonel, will be the one held responsible. You keep that creature in your room, Colonel. And don't think this matter's resolved. The SGC will know about this and I will be present when they have words with you – and they will have words. You're both dismissed."

Except it was Caldwell who left, with John and Rodney still frozen to the spot, holding their breaths until Caldwell was out of the room. Elizabeth could feel the warm brush of air across her face from their combined exhale of relief. She moved to stand in front of them so she could look them over carefully. Color was returning to Rodney's face. John, however, looked ready to collapse.

"You two all right?" she asked.

Rodney wiped his face with the sleeve of his jacket. "What, no follow up words of reprimand or warning, Elizabeth?"

Elizabeth didn't take his verbal bite personally. Instead, she smiled. "I think you've had enough 'words' for one day. And don't worry about Stargate Command. I'll make certain they hear your side of the story before passing judgment."

John balked slightly. "Elizabeth, you don't have to..."

"I _want_ to," Elizabeth interjected. "I'm with you on avoiding Sherbet getting 'dissected.' Besides, this was an accident. I'm not going to let you take the heat over an accident. Although I hope you learned your lesson about holding back when it comes to making us aware of stow aways."

"Completely learned," John said. Elizabeth was a little taken back by his sincerity. Normally he took any sort of lesson learned with less levity and a crooked smile.

"Good. You should also consider investing in a cat cage."

"He was in a cat cage," John said. "Just until the Daedalus left."

"He got out before then," Rodney said.

"A leash, then. Once we get to earth you _cannot_ let him out of your sights, and that's only if the SGC doesn't quarantine him for the duration of our stay."

Rodney frowned severely and jerked his thumb at John. "Oh, yeah, give Sheppard a reason to mope the whole time."

John glared at him. "You're one to talk, Rodney. First two weeks on Atlantis you wouldn't stop pining about your cat."

"Boys," Elizabeth drawled. "Kept with you or kept at the SGC, Sherbet will be fine."

"No, he'll be depressed if locked in a cage under Cheyenne mountain," Rodney argued.

Elizabeth knew he was probably right, but whatever the SGC decided they would have no choice but to go with it. "It's better than the alternative."

That got Rodney to go unnaturally silent. After a moment he hooked his thumb over his shoulder. "I've got to... Do stuff." he said, and hurried off to go worry in private – either that or formulate a plan to slip Sherbet out of Cheyenne Mountain should the SGC's decision not be to his liking.

Now it was just Elizabeth and John, with John absently stroking Sherbet's fur with the tips of his fingers not covered by his cast. His eyes were bright, but his gaze was turned inward as he stared at some unseen spot on the floor.

"You'll probably be requested to leave him behind at Stargate command," Elizabeth said. "But we'll make sure he's taken care of."

"I know," John said, scratching behind Sherbet's large ears. Elizabeth narrowed her eyes.

"John, are you all right?"

"Yeah," he said. He pulled his hand away from Sherbet to let it hang at his side. He looked up at Elizabeth, giving her a wan smile. "Kind of spaced out for a minute, sorry."

"Tired?" she said.

"Incredibly tired. I hate it. I'm starting to forget what it's like to have an adrenaline rush, and I just had one five minutes ago."

"Just give it time. It won't last forever."

"Crap I hope not." John turned and started limping off, only to stop and toss a look over his shoulder that seemed furtively suspicious. He didn't say anything for a stretched out second, then continued on at a hobbling gait, carrying himself with the rigidity of one trying to hide the fact that they were hurting – or at least psychotically sore.

Elizabeth folded one arm across her stomach, and the other she rested on the first so she could press her hand to her mouth. She hoped it passed for looking thoughtful rather than concerned. She was tired of being asked what was wrong, and knew Sheppard was tired of the pity-parties people had for him. She honestly hoped her smoothing out of the situation had come across as an act of understanding, free of any coddling streaks. She'd been honest in her defense of John and Rodney. Problem was, thanks to recent events, it could easily have been taken the wrong way.

Either that or Elizabeth had let a little worry slip into her expression on seeing John about to fall asleep on his feet. He handled the worry better than he handled the pity, but even worry had the side effect of making him a little less social until he thought the moment of concern had blown over. Pity made him downright anti-social. The first day he was liberated from the infirmary, John had hobbled straight to the mess with his arm in a sling and his body curled to ease the aches and pains. His underweight appearance now was nothing compared to then, when it had been out and out horrific making it painful just to look at him. He'd worn the thickest sweater he had and it had still pressed up against him, sinking into the contours of his ribs and spine as though he had no skin beneath the clothes. People had openly gasped and gaped. The next day, John had locked himself in his room, only opening the door to talk with his team or accept offers of food. So it wasn't that he had alienated himself from the world, just from the looks of commiseration that slapped the reality of his physical condition in his face.

Elizabeth had wanted to see it as an act of stubborn pride, self-pity, and pouting. Heightmeyer, however, had countered her on that attitude. She'd explained in that calm, almost wise way of hers that Sheppard (at the time) was in a semi-state of denial. Semi-state in that he wasn't pretending what happened to him didn't happen. He simply didn't want to think about it, not yet. Having people stare at him like he was the poster boy for genocides in third world countries wouldn't let him have his denial moment. When others stared as he stuffed food into his pocket out of an ingrained need to horde, or when he snarled and pulled his jacket tight around his body because someone had brushed his arm in passing, it brought about awareness of his actions, which led to shame and an intrusion of fresh, unwanted memories.

Heightmeyer, also in that calm, almost wise way of hers as she explained John's situation, had subtly, kindly, in that explanation, told Elizabeth to back off. This was neither a 'get over it' nor 'you will see a psychiatrist whether you like it or not' situation. When Kate told Elizabeth that John, under no circumstances, was to see her because Elizabeth or some other higher up ordered him to, Elizabeth had been a little unnerved by the shrink's slight vehemence.

"This goes beyond routine questions that forces people to talk about feelings," Kate had said, and that had actually scared Elizabeth. Kate wanted to observe before she let anyone confront John about what happened, which was why there has yet to be a mission report of John's side of the matter. Elizabeth recalled Kate having gone the same route after John's kidnapping and torture by Kolya. Everyone else she'd talked with, one on one. John she observed. Ronon too since it was all she could pretty much do for him. John and Kate must have eventually talked, or at least Elizabeth assumed they had. Who knew? Maybe they hadn't.

Still, the clinical psychiatrist knew best. Elizabeth backed off and did her own observing. John coped fine so long as he never encountered looks of blindingly obvious pity. Everyone else in Atlantis eventually caught on as well, and John coped even better.

He was still viciously possessive, off and on.

Elizabeth lowered her arms, and with a cleansing breath, headed out of the private little room. Her destination was communications, and her mind was already formulating the message she was going to send to Stargate Command when within range to send. They would need to know of Sherbet's presence, and the potential harm of separating pet and master.

SGA

"You've been walking around, lad."

John lifted his head from off his pillow. "It's kind of the only way to get from point A to point B Carson." He winced and hissed when Beckett poked a rather tender area of his heel.

"Don't get cheeky. To the mess and to your room was to be the extent of any walking." The Scottish physician was handling John's bare foot like an antique appraiser looking over a vase. He turned it carefully in one hand while shining his penlight using the other for a better view of the persistently lingering bruises.

"There was an unforeseen event that forced me to take a side trip. Seriously, how the hell can you tell I've been walking longer than I'm supposed to? Do the bruises have bruises now or something?"

Carson set down one foot and lifted the other. "In a way. Actually Dr. Andrews saw you and thought that I should be informed."

John scowled. "Nark."

Carson just smirked and shook his head. John dropped his own head back against the pillow. He felt vulnerable having to lay back as Carson tormented his feet. It wasn't that John was ticklish, they just freakin' hurt more than the norm at the moment. And the last time he'd been laid out on his back for his feet to be manhandled was because his boots were being stolen. He hated making connections like that, and hated the rise in both his anxiety and heart rate the longer this dragged out. Sherbet seemed to sense this, and began rubbing up and down along his uninjured right arm.

"Well," Carson said, lowering John's foot back to the bed, "no damage done. You're just bloody lucky there's not much in the way of scabs left to break open." A pressure bandaged was wrapped tight around both feet before being covered by prescription socks with extra padding at the bottom. Carson then moved to the bedside and helped John to sit up by placing his hand against his upper back. John swung his legs around planting his aching feet on the smooth floor.

"Luck has nothing to do with it, Doc, you should know that."

"Your feet might beg to differ. There was that nightmare you had that sent you bolting from the infirmary. And how did we find you again?"

John lifted his arms letting Carson do all the work in removing the heavy black sweater. "Blood trail," was his muffled, grumbling reply.

"Aye. You hadn't even gone that far, just down the hall, leaving bloody footprints like something out of a bloody horror movie." Carson set the sweater aside, then looked up, suddenly contrite. "Not that it was your fault son. You were a bit too out of it to know up from down. But you've no excuses now if you set the healing back."

The pressure bandages around John's chest were loosened and allowed to drop to his waist. X-rays would have been more telling but took too long (the Ancient scanners had spoiled Carson in that way), and Beckett preferred John off his feet for as much as possible. So John raised his arms to get them out of the way and steeled himself for the rather violating feel-up of his discernible ribcage. He wasn't touchy-feely even on the good days. The bad days made him either want to bolt or break fingers, depending on his mood.

Carson poked, prodded, and pressed each curved bone feeling out which ones had a little more give than the others. It wasn't just about finding left-over cracks or breaks, Carson had one day said. It was also about keeping an eye on bone density. Combining illness with a self-cannibalizing body made for one brittle skeleton, which was why John's bones were taking their sweet time about fusing together and staying fused.

Carson transferred from the ribs to John's right collarbone and resumed prodding. "Any problems here?"

"It gets a little sore if I use my arm too much, but other than that not really." His collarbone hadn't been damaged enough for long term use of a sling. "Hurt like crazy after sparring with Ronon."

Carson snapped his head up in horror until he saw John's lazy grin. The Scot glowered at him before resuming his poking, muttering a "Bloody bugger," under his breath. "If you're quite done being a wee snot, could you tell me honestly how your appetite's been?"

John fought back the need to grimace. "The same. On one day, off on others." Then he quickly added, "but I am eating."

"Good to hear it. If it's any motivation for you, it is showing."

John couldn't hold back a skeptical snort. He lifted his arms again when Carson gathered the bandages to reapply them.

"It is, lad. I know you may not think it but your body now is a far cry from your body when we got you back." Carson's voice drifted off into uncomfortable silence. His eyes were on John's chest and the bandages gradually hiding it, but his gaze was elsewhere. "You couldn't bloody well move," he whispered. John didn't remember much of those days. That had been dreamy haze time.

John felt like he was being cold-hearted about all this, even though it was his own body he was being cold hearted about. He was frustrated, and tired of being tired all of the time. Any marked improvement was mostly noticed by Carson, so John could only take his word for it. Although John was finding it less difficult to lift things. Carson had devised a way for John to start regaining muscle while his arm was still in the cast. One arm lifted weights, the other arm lifted a lighter weight tied to his arm below the break. It wasn't exactly an even workout, just a start. Building muscle also strengthened the bones.

John's door opened without warning and Rodney waltzed in carrying a blue nylon strap in his hand. "Caldwell's a freakin' paranoid. Lucky for Sherbet and too bad for him, no one thought keeping a cat cage around would come in handy." He came to stand at the foot of the bed, snapping his fingers that elicited Sherbet to bound happily over to him. Rodney let the strap unravel revealing an initially complex looking harness that he proceeded to place around Sherbet's body. "I would have gone with a collar, but determined long ago that they're useless. Oh, and two words, Sheppard – beach and tan."

"That sounds more like three," Carson murmured.

"Whatever. It's supposed to be summer in the North American region, so expect – at some point – to have your pasty, skinny butt dragged to some lake-side for a thorough toasting of that skin of yours. I will not have you glowing in the dark scaring the hell out of the local urchins into thinking my place is haunted. I've had enough problems with them assuming I'm a mad scientist."

John couldn't help himself. "But Rodney..."

McKay's head shot up, along with a single rigid finger. "Don't!"

"I was just going to say," although he really hadn't been, "That it's been a few years. They probably think you've blown yourself up."

"No, they'll be there, running up to my door, ringing the bell, then running away. Actually forget going to any lakes. Stay pasty, scare the hell out of them, they deserve it. Ah! There." He lifted Sherbet to survey his work. The small harness was strapped comfortably to Sherbet's body – a strap around the neck, another the torso, and two straps above and below connecting them. "There is no way he's wriggling himself out of that."

As soon as he set Sherbet down, the mir'ka pounced on the end of the strap, taking it into his mouth then plopping onto his side to kick at it with his hind legs.

"All done Colonel," Carson said. He helped John get back into his sweater. "You need anything? Like food?"

John adjusted the bottom of his sweater one-handed. "I ate."

"Eat again."

"How about I take a rain check. I still owe myself a nap."

Carson smiled and patted John's knee. "Now that's an excuse I'll buy. I'll leave you to it then, Colonel. Rodney?"

Rodney pointed at Sherbet. "Leave the harness on. I had a hell of a time making it and a hell of a time putting in on."

John eased himself back and slipped his legs beneath the covers. "I know better than to ruin any of your handy work, Rodney." He reached out and snagged a part of the leash just as Sherbet was making a break for the now open door. "Especially the useful stuff."

Carson did John the courtesy of slapping off the lights before leaving. John squirmed deeper beneath the covers, keeping hold of Sherbet's leash. He felt the mir'ka snuffle and scurry all over the bed before huddling up against John's right side. John finally released the leash so he could flop his hand over the round ball of fur.

"You're really pushing in, Sherb," he said. He arched his back in a careful stretch stopping just under the point of discomfort. "You're just lucky you're cute."

Sherbet's body jerked in a responding 'whuff.'

SGA

When John was twelve and living in California, he'd woken up to his father ripping him from his bed and thrusting him into the door frame as the world shuddered around him. John had thought the world was ending. He'd felt claustrophobic and suffocating beneath the protective curve of both his mother's and father's bodies. Every crash and every rattle had made his body jolt as though electrocuted. John had never been so terrified in his life.

He woke up to the world shuddering around him, but no one pulling him to safety.

"What the hell?"

The world shuddered again, harder. John bolted from his bed to the door, and crumpled from the pain shooting from his feet up his legs.

"Damn it!" He scrambled back to his feet. The ship lurched throwing him against the wall beside the door. John had sense enough to get his arms up before his chest impacted, but the jarring sent pain oscillating up his already injured left arm. John gritted his teeth, ignoring the pain, and lurched to the door. He both stumbled and limped out into the hall where people were dashing left and right either to the safety of their quarters or to their stations.

The ship rocked again. Someone lost their footing, slamming into John, driving him into the wall. This time he hadn't been able to get on the defensive, leaving his flank open to take the brunt. Pain ripped through John making it impossible not to cry out, but the cacophony covered it up, and the body that had plowed into him was already moving on. John slid to the floor of the hallway trying to breathe through the pain when a strong hand gripped his arm and hauled him to his feet. John whipped his head around to see Ronon standing between him and the other bodies rushing through the corridors.

"What the crap is going on!" John shouted. Another jolt, another rock that had several stumbling into the walls. Ronon shielded John from being ram-rodded a second time when he still had yet to get over the first assault.

"We're under attack," Ronon stated.

"No kidding. Do you know by who?"

"Nope. Just heard someone shout about us being attacked."

John nodded. "Okay then. What say we find out?"

Ronon stayed close to the limping, hunched over Sheppard as they made their arduous way down the Daedalus corridors, trying not to get pummeled by the walls.

------------------------

TBC...

A/N: Gasp! Seems a naughty cliffhanger has managed to wriggle it's way in. Curses be to it! Oh well, Cliffhangers happen. Hold on tight until the next installment.


	3. Move 'em Out!

A/N: Tee-hee! Buckle your seat-belts, kiddies. It's gonna be a bumpy ride. The muses are shoveling mounds of sweets into boxes and shipping them to all those who reviewed.

Ch. 3

All the chaos was going to be the death of John between the ship's shudders sending him lurching into the walls, and a continuous stream of elbows centimeters away from refreshing the cracks in his ribs. It was hard keeping out of the way while trying not to get tossed around like a rag doll. Ronon was an excellent body guard keeping John's body from feeling too much of the brunt, but the ship-rocking explosions were too unpredictable. John still ended up grimacing every random second.

"Colonel, what the hell are you doing here!"

John and Ronon stopped and turned back to see McKay heading toward them at a frantic walk. The ship bucked and everyone not already against a wall was tossed into one.

"I was in the mood for some fresh air," John snapped. "What the hell is going on, McKay?"

"We're under attack," Rodney stated. Ronon lifted an eyebrow at John in a very patronizing 'I told you so' expression.

John scowled. "No duh, McKay. Care to elaborate?"

Rodney scowled back, "Not right now." Then he brushed on by continuing en route to the bridge. John and Ronon followed. On entering the bridge John stepped to the side, pulling Ronon along by the sleeve to avoid impeding the flow of traffic. Rodney could say otherwise all he wanted, but John was far from being an idiot. He was useless in a situation like this, as much as he hated to admit it, and he wasn't about to gum up the works with a crap load of questions everyone was too busy to answer. So he all but melted into the wall to observe.

John could see the port window from where he stood, and the phantasmal white tunnel of hyperspace. A flash of blue-white light thundered across the screen, and the ship shuddered. Electronics sparked, and someone shouted for a fire extinguisher.

"Shields down thirty percent!" Someone shouted.

"We're coming up to the point where we're going to have no choice but drop out of hyperspace!" McKay said from the console on the far left hand side of the bridge. "If those shields get any lower then one more hit's going to cause a chain reaction that'll eventually lead us to disintegrating into atoms."

Another hit, another shudder, and more sparks like a bad Fourth of July show. "Down twenty-six percent!"

"Take us out of hyperspace," Caldwell said, resigned and pissed. The misty tunnel morphed into the star flecked black of open space.

"The bogie's dropped out behind us and is preparing to fire."

"Do we know if their shields are down yet?" Caldwell asked.

"Negative sir."

The said bogie finally made an appearance darting from overhead gaining distance for enough berth to arch around and open fire. It was an odd ship that looked almost stealth bomber in design except for the bridge being concaved between the wings. It also appeared to be slightly smaller than the Daedalus, and definitely a hell of a lot more maneuverable. Daedalus ordinance was exchanged with electric blue spheres of energy from the enemy ship. The enemy ship's shield lit up in aquamarine ripples absorbing the missiles like a sponge soaking water. The blue spheres flashed white off the Daedalus with an impact that sent anyone standing to the floor. Ronon kept his footing better than Sheppard, and caught Sheppard before he met with the floor.

"Shields down ten percent!"

"Damn it!" Caldwell barked. "Get the hyperdrives back on!"

"Can't!" McKay barked back. "They're down, and we barely have enough for sub-light. I don't no what the hell kind of fire power is hitting us, but it's sucking this boat dry of every scrap of power we've got."

"I'm open to suggestions, people!" Caldwell bellowed with a cracking poker face.

Another hit, another rock, and this time Ronon kept hold of John preventing another potential face plant.

"There's a planet five minutes away sir," someone said. "We could use it for cover."

"Do it," Caldwell said. "Engage sublight while we still have them."

The stars outside the port windows blurred as the Daedalus came about heading toward the blue-green Earth like marble hovering alone in a sea of black. John hobbled along the wall, keeping out of the way, to move closer to the window. He stopped beside the console that McKay moved back and forth from. Spheres of electric energy flashed from either side of the ship without ever hitting its mark save for a few skims that vibrated the metal skin.

"They're aim got sucky real fast," John said. Something about it all struck John as uncomfortably off from the run of the mill blow-'em-up attack.

Another direct hit proved him wrong.

"Shields are down! I repeat, shields are down!"

Only to prove him right again when shots flashed off either port side so wide there seemed no point. However, when the Daedalus tried to veer, a shot skimmed and the ship lurched.

"Crap, we're being herded!" John shouted. That got McKay to stop what he was doing and whirl to face John, wide eyed and teetering toward panic.

"Herded? What do you mean herded? Like cattle or like lemmings?"

"Since the out come of neither animal being herded turns out well for 'em, does it really matter? They _want_ us to go to that planet. It's a freakin' trap McKay!"

A trap they were already caught in. The planet loomed up fast, the spitting image of earth except for the shape of the landmasses. The only positive in all this was that whoever these attackers were, they wanted the Daedalus and crew in one piece. Although, after enough years of putting up with the wraith, John was no longer sure if being kept alive was such a good thing. The attacking ship wasn't wraith. However, there could be more than one kind of man-eating alien out there.

There was another hit, a skim that made the ship shudder while remaining in one piece.

"We're about to lose sublight!"

The Daedalus plunged into the atmosphere of the planet that lit up the window in a corona of sun-bright flames. The shields might have been gone, but the dampeners still functioned or everyone would have been pressed up against the wall mashed like human jelly. The ship still jolted and shook forcing everyone to instinctively grab hold of something until the end of the world vibrating stopped. The enemy ship kept firing, making sure the Daedalus maintained course toward the tawny ground that rushed up to meet them. They were landing in a field, miles and miles of rippling gold grass that continued on to the horizon in all directions. The only alternate feature was a section off to the right where rocks and boulders rose up forming a kind of maze.

The Daedalus slowed on approach and set down a lot more gently than it had entered. Everyone released their death grip on whatever they were holding – at the same time another ball of energy skimmed them across the bow. The impact thundered, the ship shook, and people were thrust to the floor. John's chest thudded against the console before Ronon had a chance to catch him. Pain rolled in waves through John's body shoving the breath from his lungs and sending black and gray motes skittering across his vision. Ronon lowered him gently to the floor against the wall.

The bigger man's brow scrunched. "Sheppard?" The funny thing John had come to realize about Ronon was that he wore an expression that was a combination scowl and look of contemplation when he was worried. John waited until the pain descended into a dull ache. He breathed in slowly, carefully, testing the threshold of how far his chest could expand before it locked in a Charlie horse. Then he nodded.

"I'm good."

Ronon nodded back. He took John by the upper arm and helped him to his feet.

Then came the announcement. "We've lost sublight."

John rubbed his still throbbing chest. "Why do I get the feeling that was the purpose for the last hit?"

"Because you're probably right," McKay said, reading over info scrolling up on the screen of the console John was now clinging to. Rodney ran over to another station manned by someone else, then without a word took off down the hall, passing a harried looking Elizabeth along the way.

Since John was the only one not currently moving all over the place, Elizabeth went straight toward him. "Is everyone all right up here?" She stopped and narrowed her eyes at John. "Are you all right?"

John wiped pain-induced sweat from his forehead. "Nothing that isn't already taken care of. What about you?"

Elizabeth took a deep, reaffirming breath. "Bruised but nothing beyond that. What the hell happened? Who was attacking us? Wraith?"

"Didn't look like any wraith ship I've ever seen," Ronon said. "And I've seen them all." He didn't sound particularly proud about it.

"They entered hyperspace right behind us," Caldwell said. He was standing by his chair, and had probably just finished doing a visual sweep assessing the condition of his crew. "No hails, they just started firing. We didn't even have time to send a warning ship wide." The Daedalus commander turned his head. "Report."

"Running diagnostics now, sir," said the male tech. "But I can already tell you that we've lost shields, hyperdrive power, and sublight engines... Sensors."

"So we don't even know if the ship is still out there?" John said.

Caldwell moved over to the console where diagnostics were taking place. "They stayed on our tail all during transition into the planet's atmosphere, and stopped firing when we landed."

John gestured with his casted arm. "See? Like I told McKay – we were herded."

Elizabeth tilted her head slightly to one side. "What do you mean 'herded'?"

But it was Caldwell who answered. "If they wanted us dead, they had plenty of chances. They wanted us here, on this world."

"So," John said, "either they're wraith worshiping bounty hunters looking to bring us in, or... I don't know, scavengers? Space pirates?"

Ronon's brow furrowed. "Space pirates?"

John shook his head. "Like those guys from that movie we watched yesterday... only in fighter ships rather than boats. If they are Jack Sparrow in space then we're going to want to be ready for a siege." He shifted, sending a shudder of pain from his right foot up his leg. "They're going to figure out a way onto the Daedalus by one means or another."

"Unless they have beaming technology, they're going to have one hell of a time trying," Caldwell stated with the kind of underlining confidence Murphy's Law had a field day with. John kept his wince internal.

"It wouldn't hurt to take precautions," Elizabeth reasoned. For once Caldwell didn't react to Elizabeth's well meant intentions with masked exasperation. Whatever he was reading on the diagnostics had him nicely distracted.

"Procedures already have my men armed and ready. The rest is left up to what our attackers have planned for us."

John straightened and was about to leave with every intention of grabbing his fire arm and strapping it on, just in case. He hadn't even moved a foot when Elizabeth snagged him by the arm.

"Maybe you should sit down," she said, studying his face. "You don't look so good."

John shrugged helplessly. "Getting bumped around like a pinball will do that to you. Just... not in my quarters. If something happens I don't want to end up trapped in there." He'd had a nightmare about that his first return trip on the Daedalus. The door refuses to open, screams sounded outside, and the air slowly ran out until just at the point of suffocation when he bolted awake, hyperventilating. Before that, he'd had a nightmare of a regular earth door being jammed, oxygen running low, etc. etc. Proof positive that Atlantis had spoiled him paranoid with its mentally activated systems. Think, therefore, it happens. Crap he missed that.

Elizabeth exhaled an uneasy breath. "I don't blame you. Let's go to the mess. I doubt we'll be getting in anybody's way there."

More than missing opening doors with the mind, John also missed being useful. He followed Elizabeth from the bridge, Ronon trailing, and shoved back the escalating shame of being not only an invalid, but also a potential liability. He could shoot a nine-mil just fine, it was ducking and covering that might be an issue.

SGA

Rodney was in hell. The Daedalus was in a position that could use his expertise to help, and he was still freakin' useless. Diagnostics popped up on the console screen calmly stating the same message of power failure, power failure and – oh yeah – power failure. And all to the systems they really, really needed at the moment, barring life support, door, and toilet functions. Primary systems and back up for primarys had deserted them while backup for secondary and life support hummed merrily away.

Not that Rodney was complaining about the power for life support as he would rather not die of asphyxiation. But neither did he want his atoms scattered across an unknown planet when that alien ship decided now was the time to finish what it had started.

They didn't even have the damn external sensors.

"If I didn't know any better," Rodney said as he attempted to reroute several secondary systems to see if it might, at least, give a little push to the shields. It couldn't even produce a hiccup. The Shield's power was honest to goodness non-existent. "I would say that those blasts were designed not to blow things up, but to wipe clean the very power that would be extremely useful right now." He squinted thoughtfully. "Which is odd since power bursts like the ones that hit us would create a surge leading to a catastrophic overload, not a drain in power."

"Not if the blasts were meant to absorb power," came Hermiod's monotone, infuriatingly calm voice. "Or to create small, incremental surges that forced large consumptions of power leading to a complete power drain. Such weapons exist, and I am reading of power failure more than structural damage."

"So long story short," McKay said, straightening and puffing out a defeated breath, "they crippled us."

"Precisely," replied Hermiod.

McKay didn't take his eyes off the flashes of info as the computers continued assessing the Daedalus' damage. More like _couldn't_ take his eyes off. He could never understand why the brain insisted on staring at useless things to find potential answers. Growing frustration finally got him to tear his gaze away and land it on the ever stoic Asgard. "Any suggestions?"

"Rerouting power, as you are already doing."

"But it's not working."

"Not yet. It will take time."

Rodney drummed his fingers on his hips. "Time we don't have." It was all starting to piss McKay off. Damaged engines and shields they could deal with – replace a few parts, weld a few wires, and viola. Power drains were a little more complicated in that they'd never really happened before – at least not to the engines, and not like this. From what McKay had read on the diagnostic readouts, the ship had plenty of fuel just... no power. Kind of like having a car battery that died. All that was needed was the right charge – something stronger than rerouting secondary power, apparently, since that hadn't done squat when Rodney had tried it. Secondary backups weren't strong enough. To get at least ten percent of the shields, they might have to forgo lights and most of the computer systems while being careful not to take anything from life support.

Besides pissing Rodney off, it was also scaring the hell out of him.

Then epiphany smiled on Rodney, urging him into snapping his fingers rapidly. "The F-302s. Maybe we can scrape some power out of them."

Runnels formed in the Asgard's brow. "It is possible. Although may I caution that the ships may be needed should we be attacked again. Repowering the shields would only hold the enemy off for so long before they were drained again."

Rodney glared impatiently at Hermiod. "Well it's at least worth a try, especially if we can get shields _and_ engines. Crap, do you have to be such a pessimist?"

"I am merely pointing out..."

Rodney waved in dismissal as he started heading off toward the bay. "Yeah, yeah, whatever." He glanced over his shoulder. "Novak, you're with me."

Novak hiccuped, nodded, and followed hurriedly after.

SGA

John had his shoes off and his feet propped up on the plastic chair across from him. He had his head tilted forward, chin touching chest, in a light doze. Ronon shifted from the adjacent seat in a scrape of boots and shriek of metal legs across a metal floor. Neither one of them liked to be idle – useless – but John was the only one currently devoid of the energy to care. He needed to conserve what little he had left for the confrontation with Beckett. The usually gentle doc wasn't going to buy the excuse that the Daedalus had beaten the crap out of his already battered patient. Sheppard wasn't going to put up with being called a 'bloody idiot' for getting out of a room he could have easily been trapped in. Probably a pitiful excuse but one he would stick with. There was modicum of truth enough in it. Atlantis had had its share of jammed doors to make just about everyone a closet claustrophobic.

John heard the click of Ronon checking the power on his gun. "How do we know the bad guys aren't burrowing their way in now?" He'd taken to using 'bad guys' rather than 'enemies', John thought, because the big guy secretly believed it sounded cooler. Either that or the man went for style without even realizing it. He'd been using 'cool' and on occasion 'bitchin' as though they'd always been a part of his repertoire.

Which was why John was careful about what swear words he used around the Satedan.

"We don't," John muttered. "They make the first move, we wait."

"I hate waiting."

"Then I need to teach you a little time passing game know as solitaire."

The whispering sigh of a door opening prompted John to crack an eye open. Beckett strolled purposefully toward him, expression dead-pan but a little tight. John did him the kindness of opening both eyes rather than pretending to be asleep. He smiled at the Scottish physician.

"What's up, doc?"

"My foot up your arse if you insist on being cheeky with me."

"Then it's my lucky day. I'm too tired to piss anyone off."

Carson knelt by the chair where John's feet were resting. "Aye? And who's fault would that be? What were you bloody thinking...?"

John leaned forward. "That a walk from my quarters to the bridge wasn't supposed to hurt so damn much." Then he leaned back, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "I'm not the sitting still type when it comes to an emergency. And – if you wanna know the truth – I was a little freaked by all the shakes going off the Richter scale. I used to live in California, doc. So saying, I developed a minor phobia to the ground shimmying under my feet."

Carson yanked John's socks off. "Yes, well," he mumbled. "You're just bloody lucky you're still standing." It was a truce. It didn't matter anyone's origins – to have one's entire world start shaking to pieces was scary as sin. John was pretty sure Carson had experienced his own little panic attack that had sent him straight to the infirmary at the ready. Controlled panic did that. Carson and John had a grasp over fear enough to go all business rather than all out insane. Although in John's case, it usually meant the sacrifice of his health if he was still recovering from the last crisis.

Feet and chest were what Carson focused on, and if he wasn't pissed before he was now when he lifted John's shirt with one hand and tugged the pressure bandages enough to see the beginnings of a rather vicious looking bruise. If it hadn't been for the current chaos keeping the mess relatively empty, John would have protested more loudly to having his shirt yanked off, the bandages with it, giving Carson easier access to his flanks and the bruise that was starting to look a little like Florida on its side. A few pokes and prods, and Carson declared John the same as he had been before.

"Nothing feels broken but I'd like to snap some X-rays to see if the healing breaks have turned into cracks. So suit up and let's get this show on the road."

Carson tossed John his shirt. No matter how irate the Scott, he wasn't one to stand by and let others suffer, so helped John into his shirt when he couldn't even get it over his head. He even handled John's socks when John yelped bending over to put them on. His high tolerance for pain also included delayed reactions to it. Come morning, he knew he wouldn't be able to move – if they survived that long.

Ronon was the one who helped John to his feet. Healthy or sickly, it always bugged John how easily the bigger man could pull him up. Carson led the way out of the mess, Ronon following after, and John gimping in between.

"You know, if it's any consolation," John said, "I have no intentions of stepping off the ship with guns blazing if it comes down to that."

"Good to hear," Carson said.

"Now, the bad guys coming onto the ship with their own guns blazing is another matter. I have a right to defend myself."

"As long as you do so sitting down."

John snorted, choking on a laugh. He wondered if they should worry how easy it was making light of a possibly dangerous situation. Heightmeyer would call it coping through humor. John called it disturbing. He didn't deny that they were all worried. Ronon kept checking over his gun, and even John knew his own heart rate was a little above the norm.

SGA

Caldwell stood before the port windows staring out over the amber ocean of rippling grass. It was beautiful, relaxing, almost hypnotic, but Steven wasn't in a position to be able to enjoy it. If anything, the attempt at calming his nerves ended up agitating him further. A whole thirty minutes had passed since the enemy ship had forced them to touch down, and the damn thing had yet to make a reappearance.

"Do we have external sensors yet?" Caldwell called without turning.

"Not yet, sir. Dr. McKay is attempting to cobble power from several of the F302s but says the power isn't building up as it should. It just drains again. He isn't sure why but he is looking into it."

Caldwell nodded. "Good. Keep me informed if he discovers anything." Normally he wouldn't have left it at that. He had questions, too many, actually, starting with why the hell the power keeps draining, and where the hell their attackers were.

Something felt incredibly wrong. All attacks had a pattern of either seek and destroy, or seek and take. The enemy should have been bombarding the Daedalus, forcing their way on at most. At least, the enemy ship should have been circling them, or landing close by. Without external sensors it was too easy to assume that the bogie had gone, and Caldwell wasn't a man who assumed.

This wasn't a redundant feeling. Something was wrong beyond what was already apparently wrong, and it was making Steven increasingly nervous.

SGA

"What's the point of X-rays?" John said. "I'm already bandaged up so it's not like there's really anything else you can do, right?" He was being curious, not complaining, but doubted Carson realized this.

"I'm playing it safe, Colonel. That's why. Any new injury I'm unaware of could lead to future complications should any other injuries occur."

John nodded sagely. "Good point."

A flash of light out of John's peripheral got him to turn his head to see Ronon stopped in the middle of the corridor, looking back. John stopped as well.

"Someone take your picture, big guy?" he said.

"Is that what that flash was?" was Ronon's reply before he started moving again.

John shrugged. "Well it definitely wasn't Hermiod playing with the beaming technology. Not with the power down."

Ronon grunted and John thought it sounded a rather uncomfortable grunt. "That little gray guy is... strange. I've never met a race that doesn't wear clothes."

John chuckled softly. "You get used to it."

They were almost to the infirmary, just turning into it now, when another flash - blue-white – skittered out of the corner of John's eyes. Numb shot through his body, slamming into his mind. His last conscious thought was the sickening rush of falling.

-----------------------

TBC...

A/N: Why, what's this? Another cliffhanger. My, my, they are persistent. But no worries, I will not leave you hanging. The next part to come tomorrow, since we're all well aware of the agony that is waiting. Plus, in terms of writing, I'm so to the end I feel safe to increase updates.

And you ask, where was Sherbet? You shall see, you shall see. Not for a bit, though.


	4. The Bad Guys

A/N: I had intended on posting this sooner but RL butted in for once and delayed the final editing of this chapter, so I apologize for its lateness.

Ch. 4

John came back into awareness numb over every inch except for his pounding head. Sound came second – shuffling, and breathy, nervous whispers. He felt a hand press lightly against his shoulder, and the contact gave him the motivation to start opening his eyes to see who it was.

"John?" Elizabeth's voice; forcefully controlled but cracking with a combination of relief and fear.

John opened his eyes to see her somewhat pale face hovering over him. She cracked a smile that made her relief almost palpable.

"Oh, thank goodness. John, are you all right? Any pain?"

John groaned a little before replying, testing his voice. "I'm going to have to get back to you... on that after the pins... and needles wear off. Crap!" he snapped at the increasing hammer blows to his skull, and winced. "I will vouch... For my head killing me."

Elizabeth turned her head sideways. "Help me get him up." The next thing John knew he was suffering too many hands sliding beneath his back and shoulders, pulling him upright without a lick of effort on his part. The world tilted and spun around him.

"Whoa! Wait!" he gasped. "Slow... Damn! Please don't make me lose my lunch. Carson'll kill me." Of course by the time he finished his protest, he was upright, and maneuvered against the wall to stay that way. It took a moment for his surroundings to settle enough for his stomach to calm and for him to finally have a good look around. He was in a large room – bigger than the quarters but smaller than the Daedalus' bridge. There were metal crates and plastic crates scattered in neat pyramid piles mainly along the walls, with a few smaller piles in the center of the floor. A storage closet. John's fellow occupants were either seated on or against these crates.

They were also all female, except for six other men and one naked Asgard being looked over by Novak. The six men looked like they needed to be in the infirmary, right along with four of the women. Most of them had at least one part of their anatomy wrapped in bandages or a cast. One guy was curled up on the floor, moaning piteously. John last recalled seeing the man the other day, vomiting his guts out.

John lowered his eyebrows. "Okay... Need I ask?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "None of us have any idea what's going on. We blacked out and woke up here. You're the second to the last to wake up. Corporal Stiles is just coming around."

Seeing how everyone else was upright and wide-eyed, John assumed Stiles to be the man on the floor, and Daedalus since John new the names of everyone of his men on Atlantis.

"John, are you starting to get feeling back yet?" Elizabeth said. "I really need to know if anything hurts."

John nodded, then straightened himself out as best he could. He reached under his shirt with his good hand, sliding it along his chest and down his flanks. When he pressed, he felt a dull ache, but thankfully nothing that gave. "Everything seems to be in one piece," he said, then smiled. "Beckett really knows how to wrap one hell of a pressure bandage."

Elizabeth puffed a relieved breath. "Well that's one less crisis to worry about at least."

John frowned, passing his gaze throughout the room in another once over. "Leaving about a dozen others to stress over. I'd ask the stupid questions like why the women are outnumbering the men in here, but would rather not waste a perfectly good stupid question."

Elizabeth smiled kindly and reached out to clasp his upturned knee. "Believe it or not, I was stupid enough to ask it myself." She dropped her hand back into her lap and glanced around. "I was mostly asking it _to_ myself. We figured it was some kind of divide and conquer tactic." She looked back at him to give him a small smirk. "Or our captors are sexist with a survival of the fittest philosophy."

John perked with dawning realization – or more dawning theory realistically. "Better yet, highly intelligent chauvinists. I can't say this for certain since we haven't even met our captors yet, but I'd bet half my salary and my best golf clubs that we're incentive to keep the rest of the crew in check. Face it, Elizabeth, chivalry isn't all that dead. Throw in a couple of wounded since people are suckers for someone who's vulnerable, and you've got yourself a room full of bargaining chips." He shrugged. "Or, this is the start of some kind of harem, and me and the rest of the boys are going to be used as targeting practice, since some people also get a little prejudice toward the vulnerable." Then he grimaced. "That's the problem with alien galaxies and cultures – too many damn scenarios to keep you guessing."

Elizabeth crawled closer to sit beside John with her back against the wall. "I actually prefer scenario A." She shifted trying to get comfortable, but looked decidedly uncomfortable the more she tried. "Scenario A, B, or C, we'll need a plan of escape either way."

John rubbed his side which had started to throb. "Step one is to know your enemy, and we don't even have that much." He looked over at the sealed door, and two female techs kneeling in front of the charred panel trying to wire the door open. "Looks like you skipped to step two – find a way out."

"They thought they'd give it a try," Elizabeth sighed. "With that panel out of commission, the door can only open from the outside."

John tilted his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. He'd just woken up and yet felt tired to the bone marrow. "Maybe Rodney'll have better luck. He once did an emergency jumper repair using a gum wrapper and the gum – pre-chewed gum, mind you. The complaints about mouth germs got annoying but it worked."

"In Rodney we trust," Elizabeth said with a slight smile in her voice.

John didn't reply. Whatever had knocked them out must have come with side effects, such as sucking the energy out of the intended victim. In his case there hadn't been all that much to take to begin with. Crisis was looming all around and all he wanted to do was curl up on the hard floor and sleep.

A hand squeezed his shoulder, snapping him awake. He hadn't been aware that he'd been dozing. He rolled his head in Elizabeth's direction, meeting her blatantly concerned, as well as apologetic, gaze.

"Sorry," she said. "You went all quiet and it kind of made me nervous. But it's okay if you need to rest, John. I'll wake you if anything happens."

John sighed. "I think it's just whatever stunned us. I rather stay awake." He leaned forward enough to reach back and rub his stiffening neck. He suspected there may have been whiplash involved on his way down to the floor. His whole body seemed to be locking up on him. "I've never liked surprises."

John hated this. Hated being captured, hated not knowing what was going on, hated being helpless – yes, that was inevitable dissatisfaction. Outshining it all was the fact that he was in the minority of being the most helpless out of everyone here. Exhaustion wouldn't let him think straight, and it was already a given even before his muscles started stiffening that he was going to have a sluggish reaction time if things declined into a fight. He wasn't just useless, he was prematurely screwed. It angered him, frustrated him, and was even making him nervous. John had a feeling the wounded and ill were just as much a bargaining chip to keep the women in line as much as the men.

"You won't be surprised, I promise," Elizabeth replied. "So quit fighting it and just rest. It's all right."

It wasn't all right, and this wasn't the time to give in to sleep. John's own body felt differently, and his eyelids slid closed of their own accord. The only sounds were people's hushed conversations interspersed with the random moans and dry heaves from Corporal Stiles. Someone cursed, probably one of the ladies working at the panel.

"There is no point attempting to repair the panel," Hermiod said. "Not without the proper tools."

"It never hurts to try," was the petulant response.

"I was merely stating the fact..."

"Stating facts doesn't get people out of locked rooms."

John grinned. The woman making the snappy come-backs had to be one of Rodney's underlings.

John eventually slipped into a state that wasn't quite sleeping; more like being detached. All whispers and other sounds were distant garbles of noise like conversations in another room. Time didn't have much of an existence. They could have been in this room for hours until they woke up, and more hours were crawling by with nothing to show for it. John would have checked his watch if he hadn't found the floating feeling he was under too pleasant to give up. It was wrong, he knew it was wrong, to be giving into his body's demands like this, but grudgingly accepted that there was nothing he could do about it at the extreme moment.

He was really hating his own body right now.

Images flitted in John's head, like old news footage yellowed with age. Men walking and walking and walking, in front and behind, ragged as scarecrows raising curling clouds of dust coating them all in the single color of rust brown. Faces striped in dirt and pale flesh, new stripes formed by sweat cutting through the grime. Faces looked back. Jaundice eyes glowed in the hollow of deep eye sockets. Too deep, too yellow. A man smiled a gap-toothed grin baring stained teeth, making a silent promise. Ocher eyes raked over the only clothes John still had on his back. A hand landed on his shoulder.

John jerked back to the now with a yelp and a gasp, flinching away from the contact. His eyes snapped open and his head snapped around to Elizabeth who was leaning back with one hand raised and a startled expression. John's breathing and heart rate already began to settle, but he took a few deep breaths to help things along.

"John, I'm so sorry..."

John flapped a dismissive hand. "S'okay. Surprises, remember?" He dropped his head to rub the back of his still-aching neck. He had to admit, the adrenaline rush felt good, and would probably keep him awake for a good while until it finally wore off. "Need something?" he asked.

"You were muttering in your sleep," she said.

John grimaced. "Anything incriminating?"

"No, but...Um..."

John finally looked over at her, realizing her discomfort that was growing the longer she stayed silent. She kept looking away, back and forth between John and the floor.

"It sounded... unpleasant," she finally stated.

In other words John had either been whimpering, snarling, or begging. He nodded in understanding, grateful Elizabeth wasn't pushing for details. "Thanks for waking me, then."

Or maybe Elizabeth hadn't scrounged up enough gumption to ask for those details. She continued to wallow in rising discomfort, and John tensed for when she would start talking again. It wasn't like he could get up and walk away should Elizabeth take this opportunity to play head-shrink just to satisfy her own curiosity. Okay, that was being harsh. There had yet to be anyone – Heightmeyer included – going all intrusive on him when it came to the dreams that had him waking up in a cold sweat and avoiding sleep for the rest of the night. The longer he was home, the less the dreams had come, but they tended to be random and left him uneasy about sleep period.

Well, that plus his newly acquired instinct to doze rather than straight pass out, just in case someone tried to take his shirt again. This recent reaction to being touched while sleeping had been the less violent by far.

Elizabeth's sudden vow of silence stretched on until her body finally eased out of its rigidity. John took it as a sign to relax himself.

"No problem," was her final reply.

John smiled. He was about to say something concerning the value of a bad dream slapping the exhaustion from him when the ladies at the panel dropped what they were doing to scuttle back like kicked dogs. Seconds later the door slid open. Three men entered.

The faceless enemy now had a face. Sort of. Said faces were somewhat obscured either by ragged scarves or in the case of the lead man, dirty goggles. Their dress was a mismatch of clothes, so ragged and faded they were almost a single color. Shirts on shirts, and jackets on jackets, with heavy pants made of a material similar to corduroy. It all added up to a nice Mad Max meets Ice Pirates ensemble, complete with slender, well worn rifles held at the ready. Only the leader kept his rifle slung over his shoulder. He was taller than the other two, barrel chested with a solid round gut and a completely bald head. Eye color was still a mystery being hidden behind the grime filming the goggles. The man was dead-pan expressionless as he passed his gaze over the room full of captives.

"All awake?" His voice was deep as Ronon's and rough as sandpaper to the ears, as though he had a throat full of gravel. There was an accent to his voice that couldn't really be placed since it was alien. Still, John curled his lip at the impression of it being a little southern sounding, like a Texas drawl.

The man neither waited for a reply or said anything else. His two sidekicks lifted their rifles higher when their leader started off on a merry stroll through the mess of captives. It was a round-about walk circling the room and eying everything with flat indifference. When he came to one of the wounded, he would stop and look them over for a moment before moving on. John was wounded number two on the tour. He met baldy's hidden gaze, and for a split second the man's fat lips spasmed as though trying to creep into a smile, but not quite making it. Then he moved on.

John's attention was ripped away when he saw Elizabeth shifting out of the corner of his eye, about to rise. John grabbed her arm during the transition from sitting to standing, and yanked her back down.

"Don't!" he hissed.

Elizabeth glared levelly at him. "Someone needs to confront these people, John. We need answers."

"And we'll get answers. Just be patient." John jerked his chin at the two armed thugs keeping a steady aim. "They're trigger happy. I can see it in the way they keep trying to squeeze the triggers. Someone so much as coughs..."

Someone did cough, so hard John was surprised a lung wasn't expelled. Every head snapped in Cpl. Stile's direction. Baldy was standing over him, hands behind back and mouth turned down in a pensive frown.

"What illness is plaguin' him?" His question was followed by a nudge with his boot to Stiles' shoulder. He looked around for someone to answer. "Well?"

"The flu!" Someone blurted.

"Is it contagious?"

"Um..." the female voice cracked as though on the verge of tears. "S-sometimes..."

"But it's not deadly!" someone else thoughtfully added. A smart move. Nothing yelled 'shoot me' like having a potentially deadly disease. Baldy pursed then puckered his lips as he mulled over the man writhing at his feet. Suddenly, Baldy perked in a way that made John tense up, and waved one of the thugs over. The man's mouth opened in a dirty, gap toothed grin.

Baldy didn't say anything, just gesture flippantly at Stiles as though he were another rabid animal in a long line of rabid animals that needed to be put down.

"With pleasure," the gunman drawled. He stalked over to Stiles, and aimed.

John didn't think, he just reacted. Never a good idea but there wasn't much else to be done otherwise. He scrabbled to his feet and lurched forward in time to grab the barrel and shove it away from Stiles before either thug had time to shoot. The rifle fired and the bullet slammed into a top crate that went toppling from the pile. People screamed and ducked. Baldy grabbed John by the throat and slammed him down onto the floor, kneeling with his knee pressing into John's solar plexus.

"What're you up to you scrawny beast!" He released John's throat to grab a fist full of his hair and pull his head back until his neck felt bent in two. "You gotta death wish?" Baldy shifted until his knee was putting pressure on the tip of John's sternum. John couldn't breathe, couldn't talk, and heard his vertebra creak when Baldy twisted John's head until a gurgling snarl of pain bubbled up from his throat.

"He just didn't want you to shoot anyone!" Someone shouted.

"Stop it!" Someone else. "You're going to kill him!"

Baldy's knee lifted away for Baldy to pull John a quarter of the way upright so he could shove his face into Sheppard's personal space. "You playing hero, then?"

John sucked in a ragged breath that caught when his ribs cramped. "You don't need to kill him," he rasped. "The sickness doesn't last long. If you think he's useless or contagious just wait. He'll be fine either tomorrow or the day after. If you're worried about getting sick then just stay away from him. You don't – need – to kill – him. Please."

Baldy stared at John through the filmed goggles that hid anything the eyes might have betrayed emotion-wise. He started gnawing on his fat bottom lip thoughtfully, then shrugged. "You make a point."

Baldy snapped his fingers and pointed. Goon one lifted his rifle and fired. John winced at the report and the pained scream from a female throat. He managed to turn his head enough despite the pain to see one of the injured women – a bandage on her hand – lying still on the floor with an ever expanding vermilion puddle beneath her. Anger ripped hot through John. He jerked and bucked sneering in feral contempt.

"You son of a bitch!" He managed to plant his boot into Baldy's gut before baldy and goon two finally pinned him. Baldy's weight pushed down on John's throbbing ribs, turning the ache into agony with no room to scream it out. Baldy back-handed John across the face so hard his head snapped to one side and stars sparked. It had literally knocked the resistance right out of him, leaving him easier to handle as they dragged him back to his spot beside Elizabeth. After he was dumped beside her, goon one returned to the now cooling corpse and dragged her from the room leaving a thick path of blood. Baldy loomed over John during the process. When the body was gone, Baldy booted John lightly in the chest, knocking newly claimed breath from his lungs.

"We best keep an eye on you," Baldy simpered. "For such a skinny little animal you put up a wicked fight."

John sucked in a breath that was like pulling air through a straw, and gave Baldy his most dangerous, heavy-lidded scowl. "There's more where that came from pal."

Baldy snorted. "I doubt it. A death was gonna happen, little beast. Didn't matter who got it."

"And, what, I wasn't good enough?" John spat.

Baldy grinned. "We save the best for last."

Baldy left John to mull the response over, and followed his two lackeys out of the room. The door slid closed, and the room was dead still in stunned silence. John remained curled on the floor panting through the pain that pulsated to the rhythm of his heart.

John flinched and gasped when a hand felt along his flank.

"John?"

John looked up at Elizabeth as she looked down at him, her face white and her eyes so wide they were perfectly round.

He smiled weakly at her, and coughed before he could speak. "At least we know what they look like, now."

------------------

TBC...

A/N: Now you're probably wondering the fate of Sherbet, Rodney and the rest. Answers are coming, my friends. At least you know that the bad guys are human.


	5. Jail Break

A/N: Now for what you've all been waiting for... Ice cream! Oh, and you get to find out what Rodney and Sherbet have been up to.

On an entirely unrelated note, I will admit that watched Ice Pirates for the unicorns (yeah, all of that two minutes or however long there were unicorns). Yes, I was one of those little girls - though I never asked Santa for a pony unless it was a My Little Pony. Now on with the story.

Ch. 5

Rodney checked his pulse for the third time after five minutes. He checked his own temperature by pressing the back of his hand to his forehead. He then looked over his arms for any discoloration that might have popped up since the last time he checked.

"Rodney," Beckett sighed, digging the heel of his hand into his temple. "Would you relax? If there were any bloody side effects beyond these bloody headaches then you'd bloody well know it by now."

Rodney checked his pulse – again – at the throat. "Does your mom know what kind of potty mouth you have?"

Carson's eyebrows shot down severely. "Sod off!"

Rodney remained where he was – right next to Carson – just out of spite. The other reason being that there weren't many other places to sit. The storage room, for all its spacious size when one person was in it, was verging on claustrophobic with the majority of the Daedalus male population stuffed into it. The only one not sitting was Ronon pacing like a caged tiger – or lion. More like lion with that hair. Rodney would have bet good money that Ronon had been the first out of all of them to wake up.

"Rodney," Carson said, and he sounded tired, which was no surprise since he was the last to wake up. "Why don't you occupy yourself with fixing the door."

"Because, like I told the good Colonel," he gestured nonchalantly toward Caldwell seated on a crate on the other side of the room, having some kind of mini conference with his deck hands. "The panel's too fried for me to hot wire anything."

"And there's nothing in here you can use?"

"Keep off my hypoglycemia and that's it. These crates are full of MREs – emergency rations. Whoever put us in here knew exactly what they were doing, or had incredibly dumb luck on their side."

Carson heaved another sigh, this one melancholy. "I'd go for the former. Why else separate us?" Carson shifted enough until he was facing Rodney. The look on the doctor's features was tight, almost panicked, but trying to keep himself from reaching that point. "Do you think they have all the wounded together?" Carson shook his head and looked away. "I bet they do, probably in a smaller room than this. Cpl. Stiles, he's got a nasty case of the flu and I've been concerned about it spreading. And I never did get to X-ray Col. Sheppard's ribs."

"Sheppard's ribs won't be the only bones you'll have to worry about if he's pissed... _whoever_ or _whatever_ these people – or not people – are... off."

Carson glowered at Rodney. "Rodney, the only person or being the Colonel intentionally riles up is you. The lad's not stupid. But he is susceptible. If he catches the Corporal's flu it's going to set him back. Then there were those two with concussions that needed to be monitored... "

Carson's medical ramblings faded into background noise when Rodney's attention honed against his will onto Ronon's agitated pacing. The constant motion and ambiance of anger rippling off the Satedan like heat waves was making Rodney both nervous and a little motion sick. Motion sickness won out. Rodney couldn't afford to lose his lunch.

"Will you sit down already Conan! Walking may be good for the body but it doesn't get us out of locked storage rooms."

"Makes be feel better," Ronon literally growled.

"Well it doesn't help the rest of us so why don't you take a breather."

Ronon halted abruptly and shot Rodney a look that could have melted mountains and frozen oceans. Rodney held out against it for all of two seconds before wilting against the wall and looking away.

"Forget I said anything," he squeaked.

"Ronon, lad," Carson said. "Rodney has a wee bit of a point. I'm pretty sure the majority of the lads in here are wrung to the snapping point, and pacing like yours isn't helping. If we're to think straight then we need at least a granule of calm. I agree motion has it's uses but if you could just slow it down a bit it would be appreciated."

Carson didn't get the laser eyes from Ronon, he actually got a considerate look before the Satedan moved to park himself on a crate right-adjacent from Carson and Rodney. Rodney gaped.

"What the hell!"

"That's why it pays to be polite, Rodney," Carson said. He was sounding less exhausted and more like he did when cajoled mercilessly into going off world.

Lesson learned, for now. Rodney wouldn't deny that any lessons concerning social graces never lasted with him. Point in fact, Ronon was jerking his leg up and down to maintain some kind of motion, and it was already beginning to drive Rodney nuts. But he decided in advance to keep his mouth shut about it, because he completely, utterly, _painfully_ understood Ronon's current state.

They'd taken Ronon's death-dealing baby away. Ronon could be hanging by his wrists in a dungeon ten feet underground, and still remain all smiles knowing that his weapon was still strapped to his side. Ronon without his gun was like Rodney without is PC tablet and a miniature tool kit. Rodney was feeling naked without them and a little vulnerable. Ronon would never fess up to the vulnerable part but Rodney was pretty sure it was there.

Rodney's eyes drifted to the scorched door panel. It was a hopeless cause but that didn't stop Rodney's brain from nit-picking it to death, scrounging like a starved rat for some overlooked solution toward fixing it. Just like Ronon needed motion, Rodney needed something to do, something to occupy both his hands and his brain. Sitting around and waiting for the unknown was birthing tiny little insects beneath Rodney's skin that were tap-dancing on his nerves. He drummed his fingers on the metal floor, then shifted his feet fighting the urge to crawl over and gut the panel for that tid-bit of unseen solution.

Rodney wasn't a patient man; never had been. He couldn't take it anymore, and shifted his legs around to crawl toward the door. He was on all fours, ready to go, when the door slid open. Rodney quickly scrambled back to his original position a second before three men entered. The leader – some bald guy with grimy goggles – surveyed the room as the two brutes beside him swept the sights of their rifles over the prisoners. Baldy planted his hands on his hips and sniffed wetly.

"All right, then," he said with an oddly southern-touched accent. "This is how it's gonna be. We need the ones who know how to patch this mound of space debris up to come with us. The rest wait patiently and quietly, and this'll be over before you can blink. So how about some cooperation?"

Rodney was ready to rise, but another withering look from Ronon forced Rodney to stay put. Baldy tapped a meaty finger against his hip. "All right, then," he said, and stepped out. He stepped back in dragging a female corpse trailing blood behind, and dumped the tech's body in the middle of the floor for everyone to see. There were gasps, curses, and Ronon was on his feet with fists clenched and eyes smoldering like the fires of hell. With a snarl on his lips, he took a step toward baldy. The rifles swung his way, but what stopped him was Carson grabbing the end of his coat.

"Don't lad!" Beckett hissed. "You're no good to any of us dead."

Baldy smiled. "Glad to see the severity of the situation sinking in. Understand this – the more you refuse our request, the more bodies to join this one, starting with your wounded. So don't make me ask again."

This time, Ronon kept his gaze to the floor as Rodney – along with the majority of the Daedalus' technical crew – rose gathering at the door in front of baldy and the goon-twins.

"Careful," Ronon growled when Rodney walked past. That one word could have crushed Rodney with all its quadruple meanings. Translated – don't do anything stupid that'll get you killed. Rodney internally bristled at the implied 'stupid' - being far from. However, he was suddenly, painfully aware of his little foible of thinking ahead of himself, and believing all his plans infallible. Second translation – if you manage to come up with a plan to get us out, make sure it doesn't involve _all_ of us getting killed.

When they were all at the door, Baldy turned to begin leading the way out. Rodney stopped the procession when he cleared his throat and lifted a finger. "Um... Not to be demanding, but we'll probably be needing the services of a gray little naked alien. I think you've seen him, kind of hard to miss. The bald guy with the big eyes and skinny arms..."

Rodney didn't see the butt end of a rifle coming at his head until it impacted with his skull. He did hear the hollow, almost resounding crack, then suffered both the world spinning and the sickening sensation of falling. Several hands caught him before he impacted with the floor, and held him while everything tilted and swayed.

"What did you do that for!" Ronon's roaring voice tried to split Rodney's skull.

"If you want this ship running," said Caldwell, "then you're going to need every technician available, especially the guy whose head you just dented."

"He'll be fine," baldy drawled. "But let that be a lesson. You make requests when the time is right. If you come across a situation that requires the aid of your little creature friend, then you ask for it. Not before then. Now get him on his feet."

"Just let me check him over..."Carson protested.

"Now!" Baldy barked. The many hands helped Rodney to stand back upright and keep him upright as he was hustled out the door. He glanced back over his and someone else's shoulder to see Ronon looking like Mt. Vesuvius at its erupting point, and Carson white enough to vanish in snow if there had been any. The world wouldn't stop shimmying. Rodney lifted one shaking hand to his head, touching something wet, and so coming away with red-tipped fingers.

SGA

If John's ribs hadn't earned a few more cracks (which would be a miracle) they would after one more poke and prod. He let one of the Daedalus nurses do the poking and prodding after incessantly nagging how passing one's hand down one's flank didn't do squat in finding broken bones. It did, at least, make him aware that his ribs were now twice as tender as before. The nurse's verdict was that nothing was broken. There might be new cracks, but there was definitely bruises on bruises, which was going to hurt like hell for a while.

With the torment of a quick assessment done, the nurse loosened and re-tightened John's pressure bandages, which – according to the nurse – had probably kept things from becoming more worse off than they already were. The entire three minute long check had him suffering a sudden minor bout of self-consciousness no amount of 'suck it up, soldier' would assuage, and it wasn't because he was trapped in a room full of women and bare chested for all those women to see. Women, men – humans in general – had a tendency to gawk first then go polite later. John's body was like a car wreck people couldn't help but do a double take at: Protruding bones, scabs on their way to being scars (especially the one running almost perpendicular to his spine from shoulder blade to hip that no longer required stitches two days ago) and of course brand spankin' new bruises. A brief glance showed him a few faces staring wide-eyed his way. When the nurse finished wrapping, John couldn't get his shirt back on fast enough.

John settled back in his spot against the wall next to Elizabeth, drawing his legs up to drape one arm over a knee. The other arm he wrapped around his chest.

"Still in one piece?" Elizabeth asked. She had a slight smile on her lips, but her eyes oozed concern as they looked him over.

"As far as can be told without the use of an X-ray. Nothing shifted, so that's good."

Elizabeth breathed out slowly. She looked tired, but also on edge. Her face was slack in weariness while her body was stiff and twitchy. "John, they could have..."

"I know," he inserted quickly. If Elizabeth was building up toward a reprimand, he didn't want to hear it. If she was stating the obvious because she was still reeling over what might have been, then he wanted her to know he understood. He'd panicked, jumping in to save a life while certain it wouldn't have done any good. He'd been ready to take a bullet – was always ready to take a bullet – but always with an equally strong desire to live. Rodney called it a hero complex. John, however, considered it more along the lines of being selfish, preferring to die himself rather than watch others die around him. An odd attitude to have, but he had it, and didn't question it for the sake of mental health. More than that, his job was to protect people and he didn't take that in stride, he took it at a full run, putting himself last and everyone else first – no second guessing, no second thoughts.

But when all was said and done, when the crisis was passed and whether or not a life had been saved, the near-misses always left him shaken. Nothing blatantly obvious except for a sudden weariness. If a life was lost after all, like now, the weariness took on a weight that could sometimes leave him trembling depending on his physical state.

He could feel the muscle tremors now, and his heart still pounding. The chemical cocktail was one of relief, lingering fear, and white-hot rage. That bald SOB had killed that woman in cold blood and dragged her off like a carcass to the slaughter house. John's eyes widened. He hoped to high Heaven that isn't why they'd dragged her off. It would have explained why they hadn't shot him; he wasn't even a snack let alone a meal. John almost chuckled. He was being ridiculous. Stiles had been the initial target and he wasn't exactly appetizing either.

John was snapped from his rather morbid reverie by several women trying to clean up the blood using clothes pulled from one of the crates, probably spares since there was no luggage in this room. Except for a tear or two on a few faces, their expressions were blank, hallow, almost numb. Maybe they couldn't stand the smell of blood, or maybe saw it as the only ritual they could come up with to honor the dead. Then he realized – the only spot they were cleaning was by the door. When the blood was as wiped as it was going to get, the women who'd been working on the panel returned gathering around it, one kneeling where the blood had been. John heard muffled sobs from far back in the room. He lifted his hand away from his knee to rub the back of his stiffening neck.

"Sorry," John muttered.

Elizabeth's head turned to him. "For what?"

"For doing what I told you not to do."

Elizabeth studied him for a moment. "You mean standing up and trying to reason with them?"

John nodded. "Although I still stand by keeping you from doing that. I don't think they would have listened."

"No, they probably wouldn't have. And I probably would have been shot." Then she smiled, more sad than wry. " But, yes, that was a little hypocritical of you."

"Well, I didn't do it because I have a death wish, contrary to popular belief."

Elizabeth bumped him lightly in the shoulder. "McKay's belief. I know you don't. You're just trying to do your job. But it does tend to put a few too many gray hairs in my head."

John gave her an abashed as well as sweetly innocent look. "My bad."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes and bumped him again, then quickly sobered. "I won't deny that I was terrified."

John squinted thoughtfully as he thought back, recalling the look on baldy's face. Crap, if could have just seen the man's eyes. Eyes told so much more than facial expressions. Still...

"I think... I think I knew he wasn't going to shoot me. The bald guy. Not the other two, I mean they did try to shoot me. The bald guy... I don't know. Something about him – the way he talked and acted – he didn't strike me as dumb or a hot head. He seemed more..." John shook his head. "I don't know what he seemed, other than pissed, of course."

Elizabeth arched her head back, looking at John as though his hair had just turned purple, and she didn't like it. "So, you thought, based on that secondary assumption, that it would be okay for you to run at him?"

John narrowed his eyes at her. "_No_. That had been heat of the moment. I think it was after he tried to crush the life out of me. I've... Been in prison situations before." He cleared his throat uneasily. "I've seen men gunned down for doing nothing more then yelling 'no' right before someone else was about to be shot. Far be it from me to question good fortune, but in similar situations, I'd be the one dragged from this room leaving a blood trail." And for all he knew, he could be next, but wasn't going to say that out loud. "The ones perceived as trouble makers aren't normally allowed to continue breathing."

John shivered minutely. Yes, it had been foolish jumping between Stiles and the gun. Foolish and yet he'd do it again in a heartbeat. What he hadn't told Elizabeth was that sometimes, in rare occasions, it wasn't the troublemaker who was shot but the guy they'd been trying to defend. This wasn't the first time John had defended. He'd also been on the receiving end of defense.

Sometimes, no one was shot, just beaten within an inch of their lives. But, yeah, mostly someone was shot. Something about baldy had struck John as the type to kill the one being defended, not the one defending. But by then, someone else entirely had died.

John yanked his thoughts back to the present. "I knew he wasn't going to shoot me. I didn't know he would shoot someone other than Stiles. I was focused on saving the corporal."

Elizabeth rubbed her right arm as though she were cold on one side. "That still may happen, whatever the reasoning behind it in the first place."

John nodded. "My thoughts exactly." He looked up at the women at the panel. "We need to get out of here."

"And then what?" Elizabeth wasn't being skeptical, she actually sounded sincere. It might have been premature to plan that far in advance, but in truth it never hurt to plan ahead.

"Easy. Get weapons, LSDs, find the rest of the guys and get them in on the breakout. Of course all easier said than done if we can't get out of this damn room."

"Maybe we could jump them," someone said, someone off to John's left.

John eyed the crates scattered throughout the room. "Maybe. We should see if there's stuff in these boxes we can use. Heavy stuff preferably. The kind of stuff that'll leave a dent in someone's skull."

People were already moving, taking down crates and clicking them open. John felt a little reluctant about jumping anyone. Baldy and his goons had seemed a bit overly confident about walking into a nearly packed room with just three rifles. Either they were exceedingly cocky, or back up had been waiting right outside the door.

At least they knew the bad guys had human skulls to crack, which was a far cry from where they had been before the baddies entered.

The crates, for the most part, were full of spare uniforms, MRE packages, coils of wire which someone suggested would be good to strangle someone with (too much morbid thinking going around in John's opinion) and spare blankets. The crates' contents were all listed on the outside, which was why a search hadn't been suggested earlier, but unexpected things tended to end up in crates, whether by accident or forgotten. Case in point, someone found a miniature welder in one of the pockets of a used spare uniform. It wasn't big enough to cut through the door, but would do fine melting a few eyes out. One of the techs uncoiled several loops of cable, then used the miniature torch to melt off the plastic insulation. After that, they cut the coils into hand-length pieces, bunched the pieces together using smaller wires to tie them, and handed them out. The wires were perfectly stiff and sharp at the ends – hand made daggers; a geek-designed shank.

"Keep them hidden," John said, slipping his cable shiv up his sleeve. Elizabeth stuck hers into her boot, and everyone else either mimicked John or slipped the shivs into their belts.

"What'll we use to take down those three when they come back, sir?" A woman, Lt. Jorgansen, asked as she tucked her cable into her boot.

"The smallest crates we have," John said. "Small enough to lift but heavy enough to damage. Once we get out, we should head to quarters."

The marines gave him uncertain looks. The techs just seemed confused.

John sighed. "I know, I know, I said weapons locker first but I've had time to think about it. Some people aren't fit to fight and some don't know how to, and the less casualties on our end the better. We get them to quarters so they can lock themselves in. I'm also pretty sure I'm not the only soldier who has at least a gun or a knife hidden somewhere in their room."

At this, the marines grinned knowingly. John smirked back.

"Exactly. I also keep a spare LSD with me. We go to our quarters, grab our gear, _then_ head to the weapons locker. Grab some radios, any LSDs lying around, split up, and find the guys. Sound like a plan?"

Everyone nodded. John pushed himself to his feet. "Good. Whoever's good at throwing things, take a crate and get into position. As many as possible for a full assault, keep 'em too disoriented and overwhelmed to shoot."

Everyone rose but it was mostly the marines grabbing the smallest crates they could find.

Suddenly, the women at the panel scurried back.

"We heard the lock beep!"

"Damn it!" John snarled. "Get into position!"

The marines took up stance on either side of the door with crates raised while everyone else pressed against the walls. The door slid open. A kitten sized ball of blazing fluff with a ribbony tail trailing a nylon leash bounded yeeping inside, turning straight toward John and leaping into his arms, effectively causing every gaze to lock on him in muted disbelief.

John twisted his mouth wryly. "Or we can just let Sherbet open the door. All right then, folks, time to go."

SGA

Elizabeth's mind kept replaying John's near death and the female tech's actual death over and over in her mind, making it slow to catch up to the fact that no guard had come rushing inside to stop the escape, or take off shrieking for backup. John poked his head out the door, looking up and down the hall, doing a double take when he looked left. He snorted, shaking his head.

"You gotta be kidding me," he muttered. John pointed to one of the female marines still handling a crate, then pointed out the door. The marine peered out and arched both eyebrows. Elizabeth couldn't take it anymore, and leaned forward until her chin brushed the bony knot of John's shoulder. Their guard was several feet down the hall, on all fours trying to see into a small vent in the wall an inch above the floor. She could hear the man muttering about 'little mangy monsters' under his breath as he manipulated his neck in uncomfortable ways trying to look for said little monster.

Elizabeth looked down at Sherbet nestled in John's arm. It was almost ridiculously easy to believe the mir'ka had planned this all out, since the look on the tiny face could only be described as contentedly smug.

The marine with the crate walked heel to toe without a sound down the hall toward the guard. Another followed to provide backup. The gaurd's preoccupation with finding Sherbet kept him well distracted until the marine was right over him with the crate coming down. The man didn't even have time to so much as widen his eyes when the crate hit with a loud cracking smack and his body crumpled. The second marine grabbed up the rifle while the first bound the guard by the wrists and ankles using wire.

John set Sherbet back on the floor. "Let's go." He led the way out, the marines spreading enough to have the techs and injured surrounded. It was funny in a non-comical way that it was one of the injured leading the way; one-armed, limping, dressed in civilian clothes that looked like over-sized hand-me-downs on him. The image of John being slammed to the floor as easily as though he were a child's toy flitted in and out of Elizabeth's brain like something creeping in the darkness. He'd looked undeniably fragile in the shadow of the monolithic bald man. That man could have stepped on John and crushed him into dust, ground him into the floor like an insect. Even with it over, the prospect of what could have been was still scaring the hell out of her. No matter the number of times they'd almost lost Sheppard, there was no growing jaded of the close calls. There would be serious questioning of the psyche if it ever came to that.

The soldier with the rifle took the lead walking fast but silent. Everyone else followed several feet behind, and even with all the softly padding footfalls there was an unsettling quiet to the corridors that was verging on unnatural. Someone whispered that the quarters sector wasn't that far from storage, yet Elizabeth didn't have to be combat trained to know that they should have encountered resistance by now. She'd survived enough sieges to fully appreciate that once invaders managed to burrow their way in, they spread like parasites covering every vital inch of a place they could.

Someone should have been trying to stop them by now. Elizabeth didn't count it as a blessing. Instead she found it disconcerting. This wasn't how such situations usually went down, so obviously something was wrong.

They made it to the living sector without a hitch and refused to breathe a sigh of relief about it. John's plan was followed through with each soldier darting off into their room when they came to it, emerging armed with either a 9-mil or a wicked looking knife. They came to John's room about the middle of their supply run. He and two others ended up having LSDs. John also had been hiding a hand-held stunner that he passed off to Elizabeth.

"You're going to need this," John said. Elizabeth looked from the weapon to Sheppard.

"What, why?"

He didn't answer, just moved everyone out down the hall to the rec room that was slightly smaller than the mess. Everyone was hustled inside – except for Sheppard and the marines. An electric shock of realization shot up Elizabeth's spine.

"Whoa, John! Wait, what do you think you're doing? You're in no condition to fight."

Elizabeth was ready for a maelstrom of protests. John would argue out of a sense of duty more than common sense, but Elizabeth refused to back down this time. John's injuries weren't just a risk to himself but the rest of the soldiers if they were forced to drop what they were doing in order to protect him. Simple enough logic.

So Elizabeth was taken back by the complete look of understanding – even hesitation, and was that worry? – on Sheppard's face. She didn't have to say anything. John new damn well he was a probable liability.

"I think I realize that more than anybody," he said. "But we're a little under-manned if you hadn't noticed."

She hadn't, actually, until now. The soldiers, including Sheppard and those not so badly wounded they couldn't be useful, added up to eight in all. These were combat soldiers, not pilots and technicians who – though probably combat trained like all military – were too vital to risk.

"Once we get the rest out," John said. "I promise to lay low. In the meantime, you lock this door. Only open it for either me, Caldwell, McKay, Carson or Ronon, and make sure you ask them a question only they can answer before opening, got it?"

Elizabeth nodded, her throat too tight to speak. She was close to begging John to stay. He looked tired, pale, and his limp and been growing pronouncedly worse since they'd stepped out of that storage room.

All she managed to get out was a tight, "Be careful."

John nodded, resigned and ready because he had to be, but not exactly liking it. Elizabeth felt a sharp stab of guilt. No, she hadn't called these space pirates down on them, but she had insisted on them all taking a vacation. A ridiculous reason to take the blame, yes, but she went with it. John was supposed to be resting, near to oblivious of his aches and pains, and now he was earning new aches and pains.

He didn't need this crap. He'd been through enough.

Elizabeth felt she should say as much, she didn't know why, but before she could John had shut the door. Elizabeth reached out and initiated the lock, then stepped back, gripping the stunner tight.

---------------------------------

TBC...

A/N: Now you know, and more to come. Thank you to everyone who have been reviewing. No My Little Ponys were harmed or even involved in the making of this fic.


	6. Don't Look Now

A/N: The reviews make me grin. Thanks to everyone who's reading and reviewing. I'm going to be increasing updates since I've finished the writing portion of the program, and to eventually have all the chapters up sooner for those waiting to read a completed story.

Ch. 6

This was a bad idea if there ever was one. Not the whole 'get the weapons and take back the ship' scheme. Plans like those couldn't be determined as good or bad until they were over. The bad idea was not staying behind and avoiding ending up as a possible obstacle. But it was an inevitable bad idea, which was small comfort. Sheppard was one of the few who knew the lock codes for the weapons locker. Caldwell had made him one of the lucky minority with access to a crap-load of ordinance ever since that rather nasty business when a Go'auld had played puppet master with Caldwell's body. Before then the Daedalus had relied on a guard to keep the weapons from falling into the wrong hands.

Alien possession was good fuel for paranoia. Strike that, not paranoia. Paranoia was exaggerated caution. Locking the weapons locker with a code was prudent planning after the fact.

John had handed off his gun to someone who could use both hands, and took up position with the other weaponless within the circle of armed marines. He and one other handled the LSDs since two pairs of eyes was better than a single pair. John was liking less and less that they had yet to run into anyone. John's brain screamed trap since that was the only logical conclusion, but it was an almost hesitant warning, because this was the Pegasus galaxy where the rules got tossed out the airlock.

They made it to weapons without any resistance, and the marines moved aside letting John slip in and enter the code. The door slid open and everyone flowed in. P-90s, nine-mils, and zats were grabbed off the racks to be tucked into pockets, waistbands, and clipped to belt loops and tac-vests. John had them stuff as many flash/bangs into their pockets a possible, just for good measure. Armed to the teeth and then some, they flowed back out into the unnaturally silent and empty corridor.

"This is messed up," Lt. Corella mumbled through gritted teeth. "Don't think this asking for trouble, sir, but where the hell are all the bad guys?"

"One weird thing at a time, Lieutenant," John said. "Let's focus on getting everyone free for now." Then they could worry about how sickeningly easy this all was.

SGA

The man who had been thoughtful enough to provide Rodney with a cloth to wrap his head and a wastebasket to puke in was named Carlyle according to the tag stitched to his gray-green fatigues. Sandy-haired, lean – kind of like a younger version of Chuck the gate tech only taller. After Rodney spat lingering chunks from his mouth, he pushed the wastebasket away and returned to looking over the diagnostics. A nifty little easter egg of the Daedalus was the links to helpful suggestions on how to repair the mentioned damage. Rodney ignored those. He didn't need an electronic fix-it manual telling him what to do. Most of the damage was minimal, some of it probably superficial and requiring the replacement of a few wires. All crap Rodney could patch together in his sleep.

Rodney looked up from the Daedalus bridge console at baldy standing on the other side. Since those still trapped in the storage room had made it quite clear that Rodney was top dog when it came to repairs, baldy had given him free reign while everyone else was forced to hang back at the back, guarded by the two lackeys plus two more lackeys.

"The damage isn't too bad," Rodney said. He would have started off with something caustic, but is head felt like a slab of concrete had been dropped on it. He was lucky he'd been able to read what was rolling across the computer screen. "The main problem is you sucked this ship clean of power."

"Power's no problem," baldy said. "Just make the repairs."

Rodney narrowed his eyes. "We're going to need power as part of making the repairs." A bit of a fib – they wouldn't need that much power, but blady didn't need to know that.

Baldy jerked his head in understanding. "All right then. Only enough to do repairs."

Damn.

"Okay, fine, whatever. You'll need people in the engine room, up here, Hermiod's station – naked alien guy. I'll take that. Since you won't let the women participate I'm the only other person here who knows that particular system."

"Does it involve shields?" Baldy asked.

Rodney squinted. His brain was more interested in trying to shut down and end the cracking throb than do what it was supposed to be doing. It took a sluggish moment for him to realize that he probably needed to be extremely interested in baldy's need to have the shields up.

"Any reason in particular why shields first? Planning on uninvited guests dropping in?"

_Please not wraith, please not wraith, please not wraith..._

Baldy's lips pulled upward in a dry smile. "You'll see. Shields first. That's all that'll be getting full power until the engines are back on."

Curiosity and suspicion flitted away when Rodney's head tried to split in two for no reason. "Fine, whatever. Shields it is. And yes they can be handled from there."

Baldy's smile broadened in a pleased way, and he waved his hand toward the bridge entrance. "After you then."

Rodney pushed away from the console, staggered, and would have dropped to the floor if Carlyle hadn't caught his arm. He continued to hold on as they followed the rest of the captives out the door.

"You don't look so good, Dr. McKay," Carlyle whispered.

"Then it's a good thing we don't have mirrors," Rodney groused. "Or I would have been obliged to respond with a pithy remark concerning pointing out the obvious."

Rodney sacrificed is equilibrium for a glance over his shoulder at baldy since he didn't trust him as far as he could throw him. Baldy's hand was at his ear, and his head partly down. Rodney knew that look. Baldy was talking into an ear-attached com device. He saw baldy's lips moving but couldn't hear what he was saying, but had the impression it wasn't good the way the bald man's facial muscles kept twitching, especially around the jaw.

When baldy's gaze returned to the upright position, McKay returned his own gaze to the forefront position. Something was up, and because baldy didn't look happy about it, Rodney would take that as a good thing – for now.

SGA

Since they didn't have an exact location on the others, they went back to the beginning and the storage closet that had acted as their prison. The sudden halt was so unanimous it kept everyone from running into each other.

The spot of floor once occupied by a trussed up pirate was missing said pirate. John's eyes went immediately to his LSD. Except for their little group, the corridor was completely empty all the way to the turn. Sheppard had been wrong; now was the time to worry about how easy this was.

"Okay, this is getting freaky," he said.

Sgt. Baxter, a short but stocky African American woman, glanced briefly and nervously back at him. "What now, sir?" The tone of her question wasn't the usual conveyance of double meaning that became so second nature to anyone military – asking whether or not John wanted her to go after the pirate. It was strained, like the faces surrounding John glancing uneasily around. People were scared – at the ready, but scared.

John tucked the LSD under his arm to free up his hand so he could rub his tried, aching face. "All right, first off we're not going to freak. Second, we're sticking with the plan. The more the merrier. So let's go."

Except he wasn't sure where to go. Sherbet, on the other hand, seemed to have the right idea. If the little fur-ball could find him easy, then McKay would be a cake-walk for the runt. John ended up at the front leading the rest to where ever Sherbet headed. Around the corner then down another corridor to the left. John had never realized just how massive the Daedalus was on the inside. A practical labyrinth, although that could be fraying nerves distorting his perceptions.

A new white dot moved onto the LSD screen just as John reached the turn into the next corridor. John stopped and held up his casted arm for the rest to do the same.

"Flash-bang time," he said. John stepped back to allow a male marine with a left arm wrapped to the elbow in gauze step forward and send a grenade clattering down the corridor. Everyone turned away covering their ears seconds before the lightning-like explosion lit up the hall.

"Go now!" John shouted. The marines charged down the hall with Lt. Baxter in the lead, keeping up the cacophony to confuse. There was a bark for a weapon to be dropped, gun-shots, then absolute silence.

"All clear!" Baxter called. John led the unarmed into the hall acrid smelling and misty with lingering smoke. The storage room door was already open, and the single guard bleeding from a hole in his chest and stomach was being dragged to the other side of the wall making room for the men to step out. Ronon was the first, followed by two male marines and then Col. Caldwell whose gaze went straight to Sheppard.

"Report," he said. John would have bristled at the command at any other time – namely if this were Atlantis and John were in top physical condition. But this wasn't Atlantis, this wasn't his command, and his body was acting rather pissy at the moment, so he was actually relieved at the sudden shift in authority.

"We managed to escape – obviously – Elizabeth and the rest of your crew are hold up safe in the rec room, and the only hostile we've encountered so far beyond our own guard is your guard. Oh, and our guard mysteriously vanished after we tied him up... with wire, lots and lots of wire. Not to sound pessimistic but so far this has all been too damn easy." John searched the suddenly crowded hall and storage room for familiar faces, especially one face in particular. "Where's Rodney?"

Ronon, after checking the magazine of his newly procured 9-mil, looked up at John. "The bald guy took him and a couple of others to make repairs."

"Does anyone know where?"

Ronon shrugged. "They were just taken, could be anywhere now."

John looked down at Sherbet standing rigidly beside John's right foot, tail flopping and nose in the air sniffing. "Well I think I know how to find him." It was a fight not to go rushing off after Rodney that very second. Eager as John had been to relent command, it wasn't easy giving up the freedom that came with calling the shots. If this were Atlantis he would have been gone in a heartbeat. Since it wasn't, he was reduced to offering suggestions on what to do and hope Caldwell agreed to them.

John looked up at the Colonel. "We need a game plan, sir."

Caldwell nodded sagely. "That we do. Since you armed us, I think we're as ready as we're going to get to take back the ship. I say we act now, divide into groups of five and split up to search the ship. You said you could find McKay, Colonel, then you take a group and find him. Once we have the rest of our people and our ship back, we meet at the rec-room and go from there."

It was a half-assed, last minute plan, but what heat-of-the-moment, way in over their heads plan wasn't? John nodded and swallowed trying to moisten his drying throat. "Good plan sir."

"And one we need to act on now. Take who you want with you and go. The longer we stand around in one spot the more open we are to an ambush. Spread out, they won't be able to take us all at once."

John had already realized that particular wisdom of the plan before Caldwell had pointed it out, but not everyone would have realized right off the bat.

"Ronon," John said, "Baxter, Anderson, and Moor, you guys are with me."

Anderson and Moor had to push through the rest to get to John. They were Atlantis men, or would be for the duration until they returned to earth. They stepped away from the mass plugging the hall so Caldwell had less bodies to deal with as he began dividing everyone up. Ronon handed John a gun he'd grabbed from someone. John checked the clip then tucked the weapon into his belt.

"What's the plan?" Ronon asked.

John gestured loosely at Sherbet. "Follow him. He found me, he'll find Rodney. But we go slow, and don't act unless I say so or self-defense is inevitable."

"Colonel?"

John looked up to see Carson pushing through the masses until breaking free and heading toward John's make-shift team. "Colonel, before you go, I need to know. The others, how are they?"

"Stiles is feeling like hell," John said. "Other than that, everyone's good. But it might not be a bad idea if you got a team to escort you to 'em. I told Elizabeth not to open the door for anyone unless she knew them, and she could probably use an update before she starts ripping her hair out from stress."

Carson nodded. "Aye, not a bad idea." He then looked John up and down, and stepped in to lean forward enough to speak low for only John to hear. "And you? How're you holding up, lad?"

John smiled wearily at him. He wasn't going to waste the much needed energy to hide anything from Beckett. "Still standing. I'll be honest with you, doc, I feel like crap, but the headache isn't as bad as it was. If things stay easy as they have been, this should be a walk in the park, so no need for any spiels about over exerting myself."

The struggle not to break into that very spiel was wide open on Carson's face the way his brow furrowed and lips pressed into a straight line. John held his breath waiting for Carson to drop the bomb in the form of an order sending John with the team that would head to the rec room. John was painfully aware he was broadcasting the discomfort. His tired body was aching too much to let him conceal it, but the joint pains, foot pain, and head-throbbing were still at a tolerable level. Cheers to high pain thresholds.

"Look, doc, I'd love to drop into the nearest chair and crash but I'm kind of the only one Sherbet'll listen to and Sherbet's the only one who can find Rodney. And we need Rodney fixing things because _we_ said so, not the bad guys."

Carson still looked ready to argue, was struggling with it, and it prodded John with a lot of guilt. John was injured, for crying out loud, and it was against Beckett's very DNA to let someone who was injured to traipse off where he could very well get injured some more. The good doc had been through enough hell from the last incident that had dumped John into the infirmary.

"After that," John said, "you can duct tape me to a..." he was about to say bed but didn't like the implications, especially with a bunch of marines standing within ear-shot, "_chair_, if it'll make you feel better."

Carson sighed and rubbed his forehead. "I understand what you have to do, lad, I just don't like it. Just go already before I change my mind."

John nodded his thanks and apology. "I'll play it safe, doc, I promise. I'd like to heal before I get hurt again." With that said, he turned and nudged Sherbet in the haunch with the toe of his sock-covered foot. "Where's Rodney, Sherb? Go find Rodney!"

Sherbet squeaked and bounded off trailing his leash after. John led the way at a fast gimp down the hall with his temporary team following.

SGA

Rodney was stalling for time, because that's what he'd become accustomed to doing when forced at gunpoint to make repairs. He checked, rechecked, and rechecked diagnostics again, pretending to be unable to locate the exact wires that needed to be repaired when he'd known from the start where they were (too charred to miss). He would fix them, eventually, maybe after an hour or so which he assumed was time enough for someone somewhere to make an escape. Or repair them when the escape was accomplished and rescue, or a massively useful distraction, followed after.

It was kind of like a cheesy little kids game – don't let the nosy adults see what you're up to. Kind of scary how habituated Rodney had become to sneaking around armed lunatics' backs.

Even scarier than that, Rodney had the sickeningly certain gut feeling that he should have been caught by now. Carlyle knew what he was up to and played along flawlessly, spouting pointless technical jargon on why this needed to be done and that replaced. Rodney nodded mumbling uh-huh, I see, and could you do yadda, yadda, yadda for me. As Rodney pretended, he kept a subtle (at least he hoped it was subtle) eye on baldy.

Baldy had other matters on his mind, that was the only reason Rodney hadn't been found out yet. He kept moving away from the console to the back out of earshot so he could mutter into his com. The tense look on baldy's face was lifting Rodney's hopes against his better judgment. Something was definitely up. Rodney would probably have to stall for two hours.

One of baldy's thugs entered the room and the two men talked in the shadows for a moment until baldy left and the thug took up the watch. Thug two came in seconds after to provide back up. Both were fidgety, and wouldn't stop wandering. Rodney crouched behind the console in front of an open panel spilling wires, and Carlyle joined him.

"Something's up," Carlyle said.

"Oh yeah? What tipped you off? The fact that cue-ball left or that neither one of us has a bullet through our brains yet? Of course something's up!" Rodney hissed. "Just... keep doing what we're doing. Which means don't do anything that'll get the two stooges to put a bullet in our heads."

Rodney didn't trust easy when it came to others making fully functional repairs, and didn't trust at all when it came to relying on others for his own survival – except when it was Sheppard, or Ronon, even Teyla, since their lives depended just as much on him as his life did on them. He supposed it was the real definition of team work: I'll save your ass if you save mine. Okay, the harsher definition. There were times when the others hadn't _had_ to save Rodney, and vice-versa. Rodney had meant it when he'd told Ronon and Teyla that he and Sheppard were in the habit of saving eachother's lives. Sometimes they even saved eachother's lives at the exact same time. Today could be one of those times, but Rodney was pretty sure it was Sheppard's turn to do the life-saving.

Beyond his team, there was no trust. Some had valiantly sacrificed themselves ensuring that Rodney lived, and others went hot-headed and stupid thinking they were saving the day when in fact they were only making the situation worse. Humanity in general was too unpredictable to jump to positive conclusions about anyone. Thus, a lack of trust.

Rodney kept the thugs out of the corner of his eye whenever he stood up. The men remained tense but had stopped wandering. They were watching Rodney with an unwavering intensity that was making Rodney less hopeful. These men didn't seem worried, just on excessive guard. Whatever was going on could very well just be on their end and nothing concerning a prisoner escape. Crap, Rodney hoped that wasn't the case.

Rodney crouched to check his PC tablet. Something had spiked, a small power surge, probably a hiccup from a fritzing system. Nothing to worry about but something to note for later if it tried to increase. It was an odd surge that seemed to pulse from a point somewhere about center of the ship and radiating out until fading away, lasting seconds making it easy to miss. But since it had nothing to do with the shields, Rodney ignored it.

SGA

John was having an increasingly difficult time keeping up, and Sherbet was speeding up, which meant they were probably closing in on Rodney. John clenched his jaw against the pain shooting up his leg – especially his right, dominant leg – and poured his concentration in watching the LSD. So when the new dot drifted in onto the screen, his sudden stop was more a stumbling jolt that forced Ronon to catch him before he crumpled. Even in that tid-bit of chaos John managed to get his fist up and halt the others. He then held up a single finger, only to change that to two fingers when another dot joined the first, then a third finger for the third dot. John's jaw went slack. A fourth dot, then a fifth all clustered on either side of the T-junction at the end of the hall.

"A team wouldn't have ended up in this sector that fast, would they have?" John asked.

The answer was shrugs and bewildered looks. John tapped his com.

"Col. Caldwell?"

"Caldwell here."

"This is Sheppard, do you know if any teams headed..."

A bullet ricocheted off the wall to John's left and he instinctively ducked. "Never mind!" he screamed into the com. The small team divided jumping for cover into the nearest rooms on either side – John and Ronon on the right, the rest on the left. Bullets skidded off the walls, floors and doors too close for comfort. John and the rest exchanged fire forcing the hostiles to duck back around the walls.

"A distraction would be nice!" John shouted above the ear-ringing explosions of exchange fire. Anderson fished a grenade from his pocket – a flashbang – pulled the pin and sent it skittering down the corridor. They ducked away before the flash, and didn't wait for the smoke to clear when they charged forward firing, John and Baxter holding back to lay cover fire if it came down to a retreat.

Ronon was in the lead and darting into the right hand corridor. There was a flash of red followed by the heavy thud of a body. A P-90 ripped loose and a man screamed.

"All clear!" Anderson called. John and Baxter emerged from the cover of the rooms to join the rest. Ronon had a man down in the right corridor, and another man was lying in a growing puddle of blood on the left. The rest were nowhere to be seen.

"They must have taken off when they saw the grenade coming," Moor said. He nudged the dead man in the foot. "These guys must have been too slow or were laying cover fire."

"Did you see where the other three went?" John asked. The three men shook their heads no.

John limped closer to the dead body and winced crouching down to search the man's clothes for com devices and hidden weapons. He pulled a small, flat disk from one of the pockets of the ragged tan coat and set it aside carefully. Next he found a box of bullets that looked more the type for a 9-mil than a rifle, except longer, thinner, and black. After that pocket was emptied, he searched the second pocket, removing a hand-held device like a flatter LSD with a satiny obsidian frame that felt like glass against John's fingers. He was mesmerized by the neon green screen in combination wonder and horror.

Skeletons, the screen depicted skeletons as seen from above in a corridor like the one that surrounded them now. Two Skeletons standing, one crouching, another sprawled on the floor, and a tiny four-legged animal. John heard someone approach from behind and another, taller skeleton joined the rest. Just to prove John's automatic assumption, he held out his casted arm straight. The crouching skeleton mimicked. The quality of the picture was so clear, so perfect, the human frames snow white against the dark green, that John could see the hair-thin fracture in the arm between the wrist and the elbow, and more of the same in certain ribs.

"Ho-ly crap," John breathed. The taller skeleton crouched down beside Sheppard's in tandem with Ronon doing the same. John tilted the screen enough for the Satedan to see.

"We're being watched," John said.

Ronon's right eyebrow lifted high. "Weird."

----------------------------

TBC...

A/N: The new, improved and icky LSD - the X-ray LSD. Available now where ever LSDs can be found.


	7. Surprise!

A/N: Pay attention now, as a lot's going to be answered in this chapter.

Ch. 7

John found the X-ray LSD more amusing to watch. He could almost make out the faint outlines of skin and organs, even see motion in the chest region that had to be the heart pumping. There was a lot of advantage to this kind of LSD. Physical weaknesses were betrayed, making John's skeleton the one to stand out with its gimping gate and a bow to the shoulders that John hadn't even realized he was doing. Carson had said he'd be a little hunched back for the duration of his ribs healing.

They heard Rodney before brand new X-rayed bodies inched down from the top of the screen. John looked up and signaled for a halt. He strained his hearing toward the constant muttering until he managed to pick out bits of techno-babble and an irate tone. No smack of skin on skin followed by pleading whimpers, which was all that mattered at the extreme moment. If Rodney was working rather than being interrogated then his guards were probably standing off to the side, hopefully bored out of their skulls to distraction.

The latter was just a hope and one John wasn't going to hold to. He signaled, and the small team spread out, creeping in a crouch tight against the walls to take up position on either side of the entrance. It was Baxter and John once again hanging back to take point.

The small security vid-screen above the door panel that should have been showing them the interior of the room was blank. The whole point of the blasted screen was for the very situation they were in right now. Below it, the access panel was a charred mess. The only way that door was going to open was from the inside. John – always big on back up plans from B to Z – gave Sherbet a little nudge in the hip with his casted hand.

"Go get Rodney, Sherbet, go get him." Sherbet yeeped and bounded forward to begin pawing and yipping at the door. "Ronon, pull him back when the door opens."

Ronon grabbed hold of the leash. Sherbet clawed at the door, yeeping, yelping, and making a high-pitched whine. He stopped for a moment to stare up at the gutted control panel, tilting and twitching his head from side to side until it finally registered that the panel was useless. So he returned to pawing, scratching, and even proceeding into long, drawn out, high-pitched yowling.

"It's just an animal!" John heard Rodney yell. "Just let it in and it'll shut up. Shoot it and I'll be forced to take my sweet time with the repairs, and you'll only have yourselves to blame." There had to be a record for the amount of vociferous volume Rodney was emitting for him to be heard so clearly through the thick door.

The door slid open. The pirate stopped just within the threshold where he was blind to the men huddled on either side of the door, and looked down at Sherbet. Sherbet sat back on his haunches, stared up at the thug, and yipped. The thug rolled his eyes and whipped out his rifle. Just as he was about to aim, Ronon pulled on the leash sending Sherbet sliding out of sight.

"What the..." the pirate stepped out and wasn't even given the opportunity to look shocked when Ronon's blaster enveloped him in electric red. The man convulsed and went down in a heap, right in the doorway preventing it from shutting. Ronon led the charge into the room, bellowing, "Drop your weapon and put your hands up."

John grinned. Ronon did love them cop flicks – maybe a little too much at times.

It was Moor who stepped back out giving the all clear then dragging the stunned thug back into the room. John and Baxter hurried in after to see Anderson binding thug two by the wrists and ankles with plastic restraints. Sherbet bounded in happily after, yeeping like a squeak toy and taking one giant leap into Rodney's arms. It had become second nature to catch Sherbet when he leaped toward one's arms. Rodney didn't even seem to realize he was holding the mir'ka, being more preoccupied with looking smug.

"So I see I was correct in assuming there'd been a jail break after all?"

The nearly perfect round blot of blood about the size of a person's big toe staining the bandage around Rodney's head threw John for a moment. If Rodney could look that self-satisfied, then he was fine for now, but John made a mental note to watch for the signs of incoming vomiting.

John tucked the X-ray LSD under his arm so he could take Sherbet, setting the Mir'ka on his shoulder in order to free up his hand and thrust the alien LSD into Rodney's hands. He then dug into his pocket for the two coms he'd pulled from their last confrontation with the pirates, and set them on top of the green glowing screen. "Are you saying you were thinking positive for once, Rodney?" John said. He gave a light slap to Rodney's shoulder. "Good for you. Now start playing with those toys because we need some answers."

"Isn't that why you kept him conscious?" Rodney asked, gesturing with his unoccupied hand at the fully alert and trussed up pirate. The man was starting straight ahead, his expression a mix of stoicism, slight annoyance, and wounded pride. John knew that look as he'd worn it himself a few times, although he was pretty sure there'd been more anger involved with him. Getting captured wasn't an annoyance; it pissed him off.

But that was getting technical. Whatever emotions involved in the look, what was registered was always the same – close up and shut up, this guy wasn't talking anytime soon.

"Given time, maybe," John said. "But like I once told Ronon – I'm naturally lazy. We'll probably get more info out of those devices sooner than we will from that guy."

Ronon leaned against the wall with arms folded and smiled down at their prisoner. "Give me ten minutes and some privacy, and I'll get him talking."

John considered it; honest to goodness, so deep it hurt, gave it careful, careful thought that almost had him saying yes. These SOBs had shot an unarmed civilian, an injured unarmed civilian, in cold blood without batting an eye. Torturing one of them would be peanuts compared to their monstrosity of an act. And hey, they weren't even in the Milky way Galaxy, let alone near earth, so technically it wasn't as though they had to worry about the Geneva Convention getting in the way. But John had discovered a long time ago – and the hard way – that there was a fine line between being considered the good guy or the bad guy, a line very nearly crossed on more than one occasion, and crossed on rarer occasions.

For the most part, the good-guys set limits, limits that put them above the bad guys in terms of who was more humane. Torture brought them too close for comfort to the edge of that line. Though, technically, they wouldn't be crossing that line since the guy wouldn't be killed – not in cold blood.

Personal issues John tried not to factor in, but couldn't help it. He'd been on the wrong end of physically painful interrogations enough to make him think twice before out and out using it himself to get answers. There was a good chance he would end up sympathizing with the one being tortured.

John pressed his lips in a straight line. This wasn't the time to play nice, but neither did he want to cross any lines if he didn't have to. Besides, sometimes the threat of torture was just as effective as torture itself.

"Let's hold that thought for now and come to it if nothing else pans out," he finally replied.

There was a momentary glitter of blatant fear in the pirate's eyes before settling back into annoyed apathy. Ronon shifted, getting more comfortable towering over the prisoner, maintaining his cold smile of anticipation.

John moved to the nearest chair, pulled it away from a console, and dropped himself into it. The banishment of pressure on his feet was heaven, and seemed to pull the aches that had crawled up his legs all the way to his lower spine with it. He flexed his toes working out the cramps that would eventually lead to several nasty Charlie horses. Muscles pulled and blood throbbed as though the skin of his feet were too tight. He shoved back the desire to wince, and tapped his com.

"Caldwell, it's Sheppard."

The com crackled. "Go ahead."

"We have McKay and two prisoners on our end."

"Good to hear. Stay where you are, we're still clearing the decks. So far two more teams have reported a capture and one a kill."

John arched his back trying to pop out a kink that had formed. The change in position disrupted Sherbet causing the mir'ka to stir and the brush hairs of the tail tickle John's neck. "What about Elizabeth and the others? Anyone check on them yet?"

"Sgt. Evans was leading a team there but were ambushed. One man was wounded. Dr. Beckett has him stabilized. Right now they're waiting for word on the safety of the infirmary before having him transported there, then plan to continue on. So far most of the hostiles seem to be staying ahead of us. Our hope is to drive them into a tighter area, but most of the teams are having a hard time keeping them in sight."

John nearly nodded when he realized the futility of it. "Yeah, we kind of noticed that ourselves. Have the teams who made a capture had a chance to talk to the prisoners yet?"

"No, the prisoners refuse to talk."

John flicked his eyes in his own prisoner's direction. "Surprise, surprise," he muttered. "Any suggestions?"

"Figure out a way to get them to talk. Right now I could go for an exact number of how many hostiles we're dealing with here."

John gnawed his bottom lip. He still wasn't up to resorting to torture. Threats, definitely, but not torture. "I'll get back to you on that if I manage to get anything."

"Same on my end. Caldwell out."

John sighed and massaged his forehead one-handed. Caldwell was right, knowing enemy numbers was an advantage they could really use right now, especially the way these pirates kept pulling a ghost act.

"What did Caldwell say?" Ronon asked.

John swiveled the chair around to face him. "To stay put." He looked at the prisoner staring dully at a blank spot of floor. John decided to let the man stew for a little longer, just until he started to sweat. With a grimace, John pushed himself stiffly to his feet and gimped over to Rodney. The physicist had the X-ray LSD on Hermiod's station and the com in his other ear, tapping it.

"I already tried that before we got here," John said.

Rodney gave him a heavy-lidded look. "Well I'm not you. You were probably doing it wrong."

John responded with a tight smile. "How's the head, Rodney?"

"It hurts and I could do with a nap. But I'm probably concussed, which means no sleep for how many awful hours Beckett decides to keep me awake when he gets his hands on me. But, on the plus side, at least I'm not hallucinating." He looked down, only to snap his wide-eyed and unnerved gaze back up at John. "I'm not hallucinating, am I?"

"If you are, you could have at least done me the decency of taking away the limp."

Rodney snorted. "I could have done myself the decency of hallucinating Carter. She was actually helpful." He finally removed the com – nothing more than a black ear bud – and held it between his finger and thumb as he studied it. "This thing is weird. It isn't making any noise, not even static. And this thing..." He held up the green LSD in his other hand, "kind of gross but rather cool. For a bunch of Mad Max extras, these so-called 'space pirates' are starting to look more advanced than us."

"Well doesn't that suck," John said, snagging the X-ray LSD for a covetous once over. He really liked the thing. It was cool, like the Arcturus project weapon before it had tried to blow them all to hell. Also like the Arcturus Project it was scary; that is, the implications were scary. Rodney was right – weapons that incapacitate rather than destroy, X-ray LSDs, devices that render an entire ship's crew unconscious at the same time (John had been wondering why the pirates hadn't used the same device twice, but decided not to dwell on it since there was really nothing to be done about it if they did) and for safety purposes John was going to assume there was something advanced behind the way these pirates kept popping in and out like spooks. It was all adding up to a group of people who should be dressed in unisuits brandishing tricorders and phasers set on stun, not wearing rags and relying on projectile weaponry.

But these people were pirates, and what were pirates best known for? All that booty they buried wasn't from an honest day's work. John set the LSD back on the console. That brought about another question. The only way a bunch of ragged, rifle slinging space pirates were going to get their hands on this kind of advanced tech was if it was within grabbing range – a planet with a bypassable defense system, or a ship slipping happily through hyperspace. In the three years since coming to Pegasus, the expedition had yet to encounter a society with X-ray LSDs and blasters that crippled ships without leaving a scorch mark. Any advanced culture they encountered was either blasted – literally – back to the middle ages by the wraith, was about to be blasted if they didn't keep placating the wraith with sacrifices, or was too well hidden to find a second time. This wasn't a galaxy with a broad pickings choice.

John tapped his finger on the green screen. "Okay..." He turned away to begin pacing, but stopped when pain raced up his leg all the way to his lower back. He returned to the chair and gingerly sat. "I don't like this."

"Is there honestly anything to like about any of this?" Rodney retorted.

John closed his eyes wearily. "Can it, McKay. You know what I mean." He opened his eyes and swiveled in Rodney's direction. "These guys had us in one shot, have the means to take us again, and yet we're the ones who seem to be winning. _That's_ what I don't like. It's too damn easy." He swiveled again, facing forward, and gripped the console rim to pull himself up enough to see their prisoner. "Hey, you, on the floor."

The man looked up. John was observant enough to notice the cocky little smile tugging at the man's lips. The threat of torture hadn't quite sunk in. A little incentive was needed.

"Ronon," John said without looking away.

In one fluid motion, Ronon crouched while whipping out his largest knife and placing it a hair's width from the man's throat. The man's grin finally broke free. John narrowed his eyes and reared his head back.

"You know a knife isn't just handy for cutting a neck. In some cultures, it's used to make a man's voice a little higher pitched."

Ronon repositioned the knife too close for comfort between the man's legs. The man stiffened, and the grin was dropped. John finally saw the beads of sweat he'd been waiting for shimmer along the man's brow.

"Now that you're paying attention, just answer me one question. How do your coms work?"

The man looked up at John in honest confusion. John pointed at his ear. "The little black thing that goes in here and let's you talk to your buddies. How does it work?"

"You touch it," he said.

"We did that. What else?"

The man shrugged. "That's it. But it won't work for you. Whoever touches it, that's who it works for. If someone else needs to use it, we put it in a machine that reprograms it."

McKay's fingers flew in rapid, staccato snapping. "DNA," he said. "I bet it's DNA activated, like a personal shield."

John didn't care how the device worked, he was more out to prove a point; that these were pirates, and not local pirates to boot. "All right, then," he said. "Since you answered my question, I'm done. Ronon, however, has something to ask."

The man winced when the knife was pushed a little closer.

"How many of you are there?" the Satedan said. Being the well trained soldier that he was, John knew Dex would ask what needed to be known.

"Many," the man said, and his lips curled in a withering grin. "More than you can all handle."

"If that was the case," John said, "then why are you the one tied up on the floor?"

Ronon's knife hand twitched, and the man yelped. "I don't know your counting system!"

That was a new one. McKay had once told John that because the Milky Way Galaxy and the Pegasus Galaxy had the Ancients in common, it only stood to reason that was why everyone in the Pegasus Galaxy spoke English or other various Earth like languages. That also included numbers. Five might have looked different when written in Athosian script, but it was still called a five, which was why it had been so easy teaching Teyla to tell time on Earth clocks.

The man could have been lying, but John's gut told him he wasn't, sticking with the theory that these pirates weren't from around this galaxy.

"Forget numbers, then, we'll deal with that later. What is it you want from us?"

The man, pale, panting, and sweating bullets, tilted his head to one side. "Your ship."

"I know that already. I'm talking about us, the crew. You guys could have just killed us and taken off already."

It was Rodney who ended up answering it. "They want us to repair it, and to hold as hostages and bargaining chips to force the repairs."

The man jerked his chin at Rodney. "What he said."

John drummed his fingers on the console. "Where are you from?"

"We've no world..."

"I'm not talking about a world. Think bigger. Think galaxy. You know, big freakin' cluster of stars where the planets hang out?"

The man knew exactly what John was talking about. The pirate's mouth remained shut, but he wasn't the least bit perplexed. Ronon shifted the knife and the man yelped again, but John held up his hand before the knife finally pricked flesh.

"Wait, not yet," he said, and leaned forward, gravity pushing Sherbet's warm, plush-like body against his neck. He didn't care how odd it must have looked having the furball on his shoulders. Alien creatures freaked people out, no matter how cute that creature was. "Look, I don't care what galaxy you're from or whether or not you have a planet. You already pretty much answered my question that you're not from around here. Just answer me this, strictly for the sake of satisfying curiosity. What the hell are you doing light years away from a galaxy that obviously offers better technology. Because the pickings are kind of slim around these parts if you haven't noticed."

The man stared at Sheppard hard, mulling the question over so carefully John thought he could hear the wheels of thought grinding away. The man's blue-gray eyes narrowed, more out of defiance than consideration. A short lived defiance that cracked, slowly, until very annoyed and very reluctant shame was exposed.

"We were chased to the edge of our territory, so kept going. We've been living on the edge of survival, running out of supplies. Your's was the first ship we tracked that wasn't built by the life-suckers, and had similar engine power to ours. So we set the ambush, and here you are."

John rapped his fingernails hard on the console's surface. Life-suckers; wraith – John wondered what technology the pirates might have snagged from them, if any. "Yep, here we are." He narrowed his eyes. "Because we have intergalactic hyperdrive capabilities, which you need to get home."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up," Rodney said, moving forward. It was a sudden motion that got him swaying a little, nearly dropping until he reached out snagging Carlyle's proffered arm. "Okay, that wasn't smart," he groaned, then composed himself by clearing his throat. "Since you chased us down in hyperspace I can assume your engines still work but are probably decreasing in power. You drained the power from our ship but your boss said you had a way of returning it. Why not just use that method on your own ship?"

"Our engines were taken from a Cuardy vessel. The Veelant generator doesn't work on them. Veelants are enemy of the Cuardy."

Rodney's face pinched in both confusion and pain. "Okay, that made no freakin' sense."

John rolled his eyes and pushed away from his perch to limp over to Rodney, snag his sleeve, and drag him to the chair, pushing him into it. "Square peg, round hole, Rodney. They've got an engine made by one race, some kind of generator made by another, and they don't get along... on purpose."

"Oh."

John turned back to the pirate. "All right then, since you've been so polite in cooperating, you get to keep your nether regions. Ronon?"

Ronon twisted the knife away, tucking it back into his sleeve. He then stood and resumed leaning in a threatening manner against the wall.

"I've got a question," Rodney said. He tried to stand. Sheppard placed his hand on his shoulder and pushed him back into the chair. "Why's your boss so keen on getting the shields up before anything else?"

The man opted for remaining tight-lipped on that one, so Ronon pulled out his knife.

Then something happened so fast it took its sweet time to register. The unconscious pirate who'd been dragged over to the wall, trussed, and was being watched by Moor, sprung to life in a flurry of action. He kicked out with his legs, knocking Moor to the floor, then rolled on top of the marine. Just as Moor was about to shove the hostile off, a bubble of transparent white light expanded, enveloping them, before snapping back out of existence, taking Moor and the pirate with it.

"Ronon!" John barked, pushing away from the console. Too late when another bubble snapped in and out leaving a bare spot where the conscious pirate had been sitting. Ronon stood there with knife out, bewildered and slightly spooked.

"Ah crap," Rodney said, shooting up out of the chair. "Ah crap, ah crap, ah crap... They have transporter technology!"

John tapped his com. "Caldwell, it's Sheppard, do you read?" He was met with static. He tried again. "Colonel Caldwell, do you copy?" More static. "Damn it!" John pushed away from the console and headed for the door at his fastest limp. "We need to get back to Elizabeth and the others, now!" Pain hammered throbbing up his leg to his spine. Harsh reality time; he was officially useless at this juncture. He stopped and turned to the others following close behind. "Screw me trying to keep up. Ronon, take Anderson and run. If you come across any of these bastards, don't get too close. Try another route if you have to. Now go!"

Ronon nodded once, and he and Anderson took off down the corridor. John turned back around, stumbling trying to not run into Rodney. He pointed a finger over Rodney's shoulder. "Get back in there and open a com to where Elizabeth is if you can. She doesn't have a personal radio with her."

Rodney was already moving. "Said and done." He went behind Hermiod's station and did a quick manipulation of a few switches and buttons to connect to the rec room.

"Elizabeth, it's Rodney? You there?"

There was no reason for her not to respond. The whole ship was a spider web of communication, with a com on every level and just about every wall, making personal coms and radios virtually unnecessary.

Elizabeth didn't respond.

SGA

This wasn't Elizabeth's scene, and she wasn't exactly up to it, but that wasn't going to stop her from doing what needed to be done to keep everyone safe. It was the weapon in her hand that was disconcerting. It might have been just a zat, perfectly harmless unless fired one too many times at a single target, but there in lay the trepidation – it could be potentially deadly. Elizabeth preferred verbal battles. Weapons – well – much of her career had been spent pouring a great deal of energy into convincing other nations to avoid solutions involving weaponry of any kind. So, in a rather inappropriately comical way, she felt rather hypocritical holding a weapon now, even one as harmless as harmless could get like a zat.

Elizabeth paced a short circuit across the room, arms folded with the folded zat in one hand. Everyone was spread out either draped bonelessly in chairs or standing. Cpl. Stiles had been laid out on the room's only couch with a blanket pulled over him and a nurse wiping his face with a wet paper towel. Elizabeth twisted her wrist enough for a look at her watch. Only fifteen minutes had passed since John had left.

Sheppard was going to start giving her gray hairs if he didn't check in soon. She was frightened for everyone, and longed to see everyone just to know that they were okay. Yet whether Sheppard liked it or not, he was the most vulnerable – unless someone else had been wounded they didn't know about. Barring that, John wasn't supposed to be out there, and she hoped to high heaven that when they did find the others, Beckett would pull medical rank and force John to sit this one out.

John would be a little irked about it, but he'd made a promise, and was a stickler about being a man of honor. He would come back, like he said. Elizabeth trusted that. It was the situation she didn't trust. Things changed in the blink of an eye, forcing promises to be broken against wills.

She checked her watch again. Seventeen minutes. She put her hand to her mouth resting her elbow on her folded arm, and rubbed her lips. She wished someone would check in, anyone. Minutes were turning into hours that were pricking at each individual nerve ending. Her eyes strayed to the intercom on the wall, pretty much useless unless she knew which room to contact. She wished they'd taken the time to grab personal coms, but time was on no one's side in a crisis. John hadn't wanted them lingering in the open for too long.

Elizabeth finally altered her course bringing her to the couch where Stile's lay unconscious.

"How is he?" she asked the nurse.

The brown haired nurse – Maggie, her name-tag read – looked up and smiled. "Doing better. He doesn't feel as warm."

Elizabeth nodded. "If anyone starts trying to force their way in, cover his face with the blanket and pretend he's dead." It sounded cold enough to make Elizabeth shiver imperceptibly. The nurse just nodded, her mouth set in a firm line.

Elizabeth turned to move away. She glance over at the poker table where Hermiod sat impassive with Novak next to him trying to stifle the hiccups. Elizabeth grimaced in sympathy, and headed over to the small fridge hooked to the wall to see if there were any drinks for the poor woman.

There was a flash, like from a camera. Elizabeth turned to see the moron who thought it would be a good idea to capture this moment on film, and jumped back before colliding with a broad body in a ragged coat. The man wearing a skull-cap and goggles grabbed the zat before Elizabeth had a chance to unfold it, tucking it into his belt, then grabbed her wrist.

"We wish to make you a guest," he dead-panned cooly. There were more flashes, more men in layers of rags grabbing as many people as they could. Elizabeth saw the nurse pull the blanket over Stile's head, then get yanked to her feet when a man appeared from a vanishing bubble of light. Novak had Hermiod duck under the table just as a man appeared behind her, hauling her up by the arm to her feet.

Elizabeth could only gape.

Transporter technology.

It was her last thought before white light surrounded her silver and cold, and the rec room vanished.

---------------------------

TBC...

A/N: Avast ye! Those scurvy cliffhangers are right sneaky they are. Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me...


	8. Reconnoitering

A/N: Even more answers to come, and more frustrations. The muses are rolling in the reviews, and toss chocolate coins in thanks. Jack Sparrow's just happy it's not the rum being tossed.

Ch. 8

"Elizabeth, it's Rodney, you there?"

Rodney exchanged a nervous look with John. He was really starting to hate all the silence. The Daedalus wasn't supposed to be this quiet. It was supposed to be loud with people walking, talking, and the low and nearly imperceptible hum of working technology. It was supposed to be alive, literally and figuratively. Instead, it was starting to feel a little like an abandoned, metal mausoleum, and regular stone mausoleums were spooky enough. Rodney drummed his fingers on the console top, siphoning his agitated need to move into that one hand.

"Rodney?"

Rodney jumped. The voice over the com wasn't female, and wasn't American.

"Beckett! Where the hell is Elizabeth!"

"I don't know. Half the bloody crew seems to be missing. We only found five people plus Hermiod in the rec room, and you're the first to call over the radio. What the hell is going on?"

Rodney had his mouth open for a response when John bolted from the room, shouting over his shoulder to the female marine, Carlyle, and Rodney, "Stay here!"

The marine had to take orders and Carlyle was too nervous to do anything but obey. Rodney, on the other hand, was neither, and took off after John. He didn't have to go far when he heard John cry out, and exited the room in time to see John sprawled on the floor with Sherbet pawing at his hand. He was trying to rise with an effort that looked painful, grunting and gasping as he struggled shakily up onto his elbows.

Rodney's gut constricted, and for a moment he couldn't move. There was a brief, but heart slamming second where he thought Sheppard had been shot, and it shocked him enough to freeze him to the spot. When shock flipped into urgency, Rodney found motion and dropped to his knees beside Sheppard, taking him by one shoulder and one arm to help ease him up and back against the wall.

No blood, no bullet holes. Sheppard was fine – relatively. His face was pinched with pain and wet with sweat at the temples.

"What happened?" Rodney asked.

"My feet, my damn feet!" John snarled.

That explained the pain, but Rodney suspected it was more than that. Now that he was off his feet John's breaths continued heavy in its course, and Rodney felt a slight tremor in the shoulder he was still gripping. Sheppard attempted to get up only to have Rodney push him back down.

"Whoa, hold up there. Just take a minute and catch your breath or you're going to just drop again. Face facts, Sheppard, you're exhausted. And even if you weren't, running to the rec room isn't going to solve anything."

John nodded, then tilted his head back, focusing on steadying his breathing. He looked ill, but that was most likely due to the pain from his feet and a rapid heart making him pale, combined with him being so thin. Rodney slid his fingers over the pulse-point on John's wrist and pressed. He didn't know why. He didn't even know what it was he was supposed to be looking out for. He just knew it was something Carson would have done if he was here, and Rodney didn't know what else to do.

John's pulse was fast, but Rodney could feel it also starting to slow as Sheppard rested. That is until John slammed the heel of his fist into the floor with a fleshy smack.

"Damn it!" he hissed. He brought his shaking hand up and rubbed his face. "We should have gone straight to them after getting you."

Rodney scowled. "Don't even start with the should haves and what ifs. Being here or being there probably wouldn't have changed anything. These people have transporter technology advanced enough to let them pop in and out of here like weasels. They still would have come no matter who was where, and probably would have shot you just for the fun of it."

John gave him a heavy-lidded look. "You don't know that."

"No, I don't, I'm just trying to make you feel better."

"By telling me they would have shot me?"

"Exactly."

John snorted, but it was more an amused snort than skeptical by the smile trying to curve his lips. It was a failed attempt, and John was frowning again, looking away down the hall. Sherbet crawled into his lap, curling up against Sheppard's stomach.

"I am right about one thing," Rodney said after a moment, when John's pulse finally returned to what he supposed was normalcy. "They would have dropped in anyways, probably taken you along with everyone else."

"Then I could have helped from their end."

"Probably not. Trust me, I think you're more use here since we're the ones with the ancient gadgets that need lit up, like the LSDs. Try not to be shocked by my attempt at optimism, but we will get everyone back. Look, we know they want the Daedalus repaired so they're not going to take everyone. And they're not going to kill anyone so long as we cooperate. So, I think that for now, we're safe – not to jinx the situation or anything. And not that I believe in jinxes but life in general seems to get its kicks from proving us wrong, and irony sucks."

John actually managed a smile this time around. Rodney didn't know why, but it made him feel better, like proof that John was just tired and hadn't hit rock bottom. Up until now, except for being several pounds under weight and out of uniform, Rodney had been seeing nothing but the old Sheppard; the Sheppard who could handle anything, the Sheppard who could pull a plan out of thin air that would save their collective butts at the last second.

The Sheppard so persistent about never giving up that he never had to say 'everything's going to be all right'. It was stated loud and clear every time he so much as walked into a room.

Then John had dropped thanks to the pain in his feet, and suddenly he was back to being frail and damaged. It was hard not to take that as a sign that they were screwed. It was also a little unfair to Sheppard. He was physically worn out, not mentally worn out. Most of the tension lines on his face weren't from pain alone.

Rodney gave John's shoulder an awkward but hopefully reassuring pat. "Carson's gonna kick my ass."

"Only after he kicks mine."

"Dr. McKay?"

Rodney looked up and to the right at Carlyle hovering between the door and the hall, his thumb crooked over his shoulder. "Dr. Beckett's on the line. I tried to explain to him what's going on but he wants to talk to you."

"Tell him to stay put, we'll meet him at the rec room." Epiphany struck, and Rodney snapped his fingers. "Strike that. Tell him to take everyone into the infirmary, we'll meet him there."

"Rodney," John growled.

"The infirmary's such a lovely place this time of year I thought we'd have a tea party there. Indulge me, Colonel. You know that's where he's going to hustle your stick figure once we show up."

Carlyle nodded and backed up through the door. Rodney doubled over to get John's arm across his shoulder, and slipped his own arm around John's waist. They both grunted as they scrambled and heaved to their feet. John grimaced hard, his legs already starting to buckle, making Rodney's arm slide up from being stabbed by John's hipbone to bruised by his floating rib.

"Yes," Rodney grunted. "There will definitely be unnecessary inoculations in our future. Right in the butt too."

They didn't start hobbling until John finally got his knees to lock. Sherbet trotted along beside them with his leash hissing over the metal floor. Rodney was dreading the hell-raising Beckett was going to instigate on seeing Sheppard unable to stand on his own two feet. Why his voodoo highness always had to involve Rodney in the blame-game over John's physical condition was beyond him. It wasn't like he forced John at gunpoint to run all over the blasted ship. That had been the bad guy's fault. Then, of course, there was Rodney's own little head injury, but he was looking forward to having at least a couple of Tylenol slapped into his hand. His skull felt like it was splitting into a miniature version of the San Andreas fault. Keeping Sheppard upright was making it worse, and if Rodney recalled correctly, the infirmary was at the other end of the ship from where they were.

A flash of silver-white light brought both men to a halt, and Sherbet to a halt with his tail shooting straight up into the air, bristling.

Rodney gulped audibly and cringed back. "Oh crap."

Double oh crap. The bubble contracted out of existence, leaving a very poised and unconcerned baldy standing in their path, pudgy hands clasped to the front, and X-ray LSD dangling from one hand. Rodney almost dropped Sheppard when the Colonel twisted trying to go for the gun he'd tucked in his waist band.

"I'd advise against that, little beast. You kill me and they'll be a mess of dead on your conscience."

John stopped wriggling and stilled. Rodney saw his lip curl in pure revulsion and fury out of the corner of his eye. "What do you want?"

Baldy turned his goggled gaze on Rodney. "To let you know the last threat still stands. You fix this ship, or people die. You hear? When it's fixed, you get your people back. Shields first, remember." He lifted the X-ray LSD, waggling it back and forth, and looked at Sheppard. "We'll be watching, now, so no trouble from you, little beast." He gave John a blank once over, then a smile split his features like a knife-slit through a melon. "Never thought I'd have to make threats to a cripple."

John lunged forward, but Rodney held him back – a little too easily for comfort in Rodney's opinion.

"Why the shields?" Rodney asked. "Why not the engines?"

Baldy didn't answer, he vanished when the bubble expanded then shrank away.

"Oh for crying out loud," Rodney snarled. He shifted his shoulders to adjust John's arm more comfortably.

"Why the obsession with the shields?" Sheppard asked.

"I asked. Apparently, vanishing into thin air means he didn't want to answer."

They started moving again since standing around was only going to do to make things worse when John couldn't take the pain in his feet anymore. Carson was so going to kill them, very, very dead.

"Control tactic," John said. "They'll answer when they feel like it, or not at all. Keeps us in our place."

"Well, it's making me nervous. I mean for all we know they're expecting some kind of an attack. Either that or they're closet OCDs who want repairs done in a certain order. In which case, I should do repairs out of order, but I'd rather not take the chance."

Sheppard smiled. "You really are a smart man, McKay."

Rodney snorted. "Glad to see you finally noticed."

SGA

Beckett's eyes nearly popped out of his head when McKay stumbled in supporting a pale and sweaty Sheppard.

"You've got to be kidding me! Colonel, lad...!"

Rodney deposited the Colonel onto the nearest gurney, then dragged his feet to the next nearest gurney and pulled himself up into sitting.

"Carson," John said, scooting backward then swinging around to lie back. Sherbet made one massive leap onto the bed, circling before curling up against John's hip. "You can chew me up and spit me out when we're back in space with everyone accounted for." He didn't stay lying for long when he propped himself up by his elbows. "So who's all here?"

They'd run into Ronon and Anderson while heading toward the infirmary, along with two more teams. Cpl. Stiles was tucked in a bed, hooked to an I.V. of fluids. Everyone else was milling around, either sitting on gurneys or in the nearest chair, or – in the case of Hermiod – standing around as though waiting. About twenty people in all more or less, most of them technicians, a smattering of marines, two nurses, one Asgard, and one Satedan.

Beckett had a nurse check on Rodney while he handled Sheppard's feet. The lad hadn't even been wearing any shoes, just the thick socks. Carson pulled the right sock off first, and pursed his lips at the bruising splotching the heel. "Seems these hostiles as you military have been calling 'em have nigh picked us clean. Oh, bleedin' fires of hell, lad... I think you've officially set yourself back."

"I know," John said. He was staring off a little to the left, glaring at nothing in particular. He was pissed, and not just because he was very likely to end up back in a wheelchair for another week. Carson should have been giving him a lecture heated enough to flay skin from bone, except he couldn't. This wasn't Sheppard's fault. Well, it was in that Sheppard could have literally sat this one out in the nearest chair. A quick glance around kept Beckett's mouth shut about it. There were marines with bandages on their arms, some on their heads, brandishing weapons and standing guard. There'd been few of them able to take action in the beginning when they'd been locked up, and there were even fewer now that most had been taken. None of them could afford to sit this one out – except Stiles who probably didn't even have a clue as to what was going on.

Carson replaced the sock and moved on to the other foot.

"Hey McKay," John said. "Think these guys are listening in along with watching?"

Beckett glanced over his shoulder. The nurse had removed the cloth and was cleaning the small laceration on Rodney's forehead.

"Well, since baldy didn't say anything about listening, and those X-ray things didn't have anything resembling a speaker – nor were making any sounds – I would say no. Then again, with the way they've been zapping in and out, they could have left devices, or are listening in over the coms." He tried to turned his head, only to have the nurse grab his chin and pull it back. "Ow! Hey! Injured here! Anyone got a PC? PDA? Anything?"

A short, squat, balding man with coke-bottle glasses raised a nervous hand. "I do, Dr. McKay."

Rodney snapped his fingers then held them open. "Fork it over."

The little man pulled a laptop from the satchel he had hanging over his shoulder and passed it over to Rodney. Rodney opened the lid and began filling the infirmary with the sounds of clacking. The nurse had finished cleaning so was now applying butterfly bandages to the cut.

"There was an energy spike I noticed while the intergalactic Captain Kidd was having me do repairs," Rodney said. "I ignored it but it may have been when one of baldy's thugs materialized or vanished or whatever. So whatever these guys are using, it can be detected, so I should know if the walls have ears."

Beckett replaced John's left sock. "What is it these buggers want, anyways?" He moved over to the bed side, placing a hand on John's shoulder to help him sit up.

"They want the ship," Rodney said. "And they want us to fix it. And they took everyone else as hostages to make us."

Carson began pulling John's shirt up. John, however, tugged it back down, wearing a suddenly uneasy expression.

"Ribs are fine, doc."

Carson tried again. "I'll be the judge of that."

John stopped him, and glanced at Beckett imploringly. "Can't it wait?"

Beckett was ready to respond 'like hell it could' but Sheppard's discomfort finally registered. People were staring at him. Actually, they were staring at both him and Rodney, the two with the most answers. Beckett had suffered a momentary lapse in memory concerning John's self-conscious streak over the state of his own body. Beckett didn't blame him. John could have been crushed under the weight of sympathetic stares tossed his way since the day he'd been brought home.

Fortunately for John, all the beds had privacy curtains. Carson did him the favor of pulling it closed just enough to block him from everyone's sights. John finally relented to Carson pulling up his shirt and removing the pressure bandages.

There was new bruising, large and dark, from the end of Johns sternum to his stomach, as well as a little bruising around his throat. Carson's heart thudded hard in a surge of anger.

"They do this to you, lad?" he asked softly, keeping the fury internal as he felt each of John's ribs for any new breaks.

John smiled a little sadly. "Small price to pay to keep them from putting a bullet in Cpl. Stile's head." Then the smile vanished. "They went ahead and put a bullet in someone else."

"Aye," Carson growled. "We saw the aftermath of that. They called it 'incentive', though it bloody well worked... the bastards."

"If they have the means to get on this ship through that beaming thing," said Ronon from the other side of the curtain. "Why don't they just do that?"

In other words, why weren't there any guards? Carson had been wondering that himself. So far, these pirates had come and gone, rather than swarmed the ship taking it all at once.

"No listening devices in here," Rodney announced.

"I'm starting to suspect there aren't that many of them," John said.

"But that guy said there were many?" Rodney countered.

John furrowed his brow and rolled his eyes toward Rodney. "And you believed him? Come on, Rodney, no one's going to tell the enemy 'there's five of us, be afraid' when there's twenty of the enemy. They left twenty of us so how much you wanna bet there's twenty of them? Or less. Popping in and out like they did made their numbers seem more. For that same reason, they're relying on us playing nice to keep our people safe rather than risking any of their men and lowering their numbers. These guys are smart. However, they're also paranoid, which could work to our advantage as soon as we figure out how."

"Right now I'd just be happy keeping them from popping in and out," said Rodney, still clacking away. "That would be a nice advantage to start with. I don't even see how they can do it, not without being in close proximity to continually scan our ships. It would have to be one continuous scan to see what was where and who was where to keep from materializing into anything... or one," Rodney's face scrunched in disgust and he shivered. "Lovely mental image right there. Moving on. They've been right on the money every time they've beamed in so they have to be near, probably right smack above us."

Carson felt John's ribs spread when the pilot straightened. "So a little reconnaissance is in order."

"Not on those feet, Colonel," Carson quickly warned.

"I could go check it out," Ronon said.

"Actually," said Sheppard, "I've got a better idea. I'm just as curious as to why they want the shields up so bad. I say we force their hand, make them give a little info for better cooperation."

"How," Rodney countered, "without any hostages getting killed?"

"I take an F-302 out. Seeing that, they're probably going to beam in asking what the hell I'm up to. You, Rodney, tell them that I'm patrolling the area because you think these pirates had an enemy on their tail, and that's why they want the shields up, because another group of bad guys are coming. By the time they start demanding you call me back in, I'll have had enough time to see where they're positioned. Plus, we might be able to find out why they want the shields up. They'll be more inclined to tell us if they think it'll keep us in line."

Rodney balked. "That's a terrible plan! They might decide to shoot you down instead."

"No, they won't. I don't even think they're up in the air. You said it yourself that they're engines are probably depleted. I don't think they're going to waste power hovering over us. Besides, like I said, they're smart and paranoid. They're going to see some kind of a trick and ask questions first before firing."

"Still a bad idea."

"Then I'll move out of firing range. I'm just going for a quick look see."

Carson rewrapped John's chest. "I agree with Rodney. It's risky."

"So is standing around doing nothing," said Ronon. "And giving into their demands. Once they're through with us, they'll either ditch us on some other world or kill us all."

John adjusted his shirt back over his body. He then moved Sherbet aside in order to swing his legs around to hang over the edge of the bed. "Help me out, Ronon."

Ronon didn't hesitate to head over to John, which Carson was ready for, placing himself between the two and planting a hand on the big man's chest. He turned his head to face John and pointed at him. "I can't stop you from doing what you need to do, but you can at least humor me enough to do most of it in a wheelchair."

Sheppard made his eyes go heavy lidded in annoyance. "You drive a hard bargain, doc."

Carson lowered his hand when Ronon moved away to fetch the chair, and smiled. Sheppard was usually, actually, less recalcitrant during a crisis so long as Carson didn't try to confine him to an infirmary bed. "Just looking out for your feet, lad. You put the poor buggers through enough."

John smiled back on that one – tired, not quite reaching his eyes, but Beckett would take it. There would be no end to fretting over John until he finally did have the Colonel confined to an infirmary bed. The man looked like he was running on adrenaline fumes rather than the actual stuff. And he was going to take a ship into the air? It all screamed bad, bad, bad and more bad. Carson would have suggested someone else go, but he had the sneaking suspicion that the reason John had automatically volunteered himself was because he was currently the only functional pilot in the room. Colonel Sheppard was a take-charge kind of leader, sometimes a little reckless, but no fool, and he wasn't looking particularly excited at the moment.

In fact, after Ronon brought the chair over and aided Sheppard from the bed into the seat (and after the winces and hisses of pain passed) the Colonel's look of grim determination was a little marred by trepidation.

"Good luck, lad," Carson said, since it was all he really could say. John tossed him a thankful smile over his shoulder that was short lived.

"Don't use ships one to four on the right hand side," Rodney called. "We sort of, kind of, had to cannibalize their power."

With one patient beyond his care, Carson turned his attention to his other. The creature, Sherbet, hopped off the bed to go bounding over to Rodney's side and hop up next to him, curling up against his thigh. The nurse voiced her concerns quietly about a possible concussion, and Carson couldn't dispute her. Rodney was focused on what he was doing, but pale and going a little green around the gills.

Carson stepped up to Rodney and gave him a light pat on the arm. "I need you to set that aside, lad. It's scan time."

"Not now," McKay snapped.

"Yes now, before your brain decides to leak out of your ears."

Rodney's sardonic exhale was hissing and sharp. "My brain is perfectly intact. Just give some Aspirin and let me work."

Carson twisted his mouth in mild vexation. It was a rather ironic streak of Rodney's how neurotically in tune he was to his own health up until he was immersed in something deemed more important than himself – either because it could win him the Nobel prize or because it involved saving his and everyone else's collective hides. Irony after irony. Carson just stood there, waiting.

The inevitable finally hit Rodney. The green in his face became more pronounced, the clacking stopped, and Carson thought he had never seen Rodney move faster when he set the PC aside to lurch forward.

"I think I'm gonna..."

The nurse already had the basin under his mouth just as he started to heave. Sherbet's little head perked, and his body jerked in a tiny yeep.

SGA

As a kid, John had snagged every opportunity he could to go barreling down the food aisle standing on the shopping cart while his mom's back was turned. When he was a little older, he and a friend had found an abandoned shopping cart, and took turns pushing each other around at the highest speed young, human legs were capable of. Flashing back to those memories helped against the twang of humiliation at being escorted to a high-tech space jet in a wheel chair. In a moment of ironic humor, John tried to talk Ronon into giving the chair a massive shove and release to send John flying down the corridors.

"I don't think Beckett would like that," Ronon said.

"Beckett doesn't have to know."

"He will if you end up running into a wall."

John grinned wryly. "Spoil sport." He didn't mean it. He was feeling rebellious toward the universe in general since it was so blatantly out to get him, and he needed to vent. He was pretty much going cripple in a crisis, all after already having survived another crisis that had nearly killed him. He had every right to be pissed but settled on ornery since it was more amusing.

He was also scared. It was a productive fear, pumping him full of adrenaline, but also keeping his heart rate a little above normal. He didn't trust too much in his plan because he didn't trust these pirates. Rodney was right; they could just as soon shoot him down and ask questions later rather than risking doing the reverse. But that was only if they hadn't landed or weren't staying above orbit. The F-302s knew when they were being targeted, and John knew the tricks that would make him a hard target, such as keeping close to the Daedalus. The pirates wouldn't risk hurting their ticket out of here just to disintegrate one little fighter. He was confident, just not pridefully so. Like he'd told the others, this was to be a quick look see, in and out before the pirate captain had a chance to bellow fire.

They came to the hanger bay sooner than John realized, and he was wheeled to the nearest F-302. Ronon took him by the arm, pulling him up then supporting him from the chair to the metal access ladder. John felt like a Geriatric being loaded onto a tour bus about the leave the rest home, made all the more unpleasantly real by his brief stint as an elderly man. The joint pains were still fresh in his mind as they had hurt like hell.

John felt a little more his younger self as soon as he climbed into the cock-pit and settled in the seat. He tugged the already present helmet onto his head as Ronon climbed down then moved the chair out of the way. John waited until Ronon was out of the bay, then started flipping switches, booting systems and checking them over. John adjusted the com frequency to keep all conversations isolated to the Daedalus medbay only.

"Hey Rodney," John said. "Think you can get the bay doors open form your end or do I have to wait for someone to hightail it to the bridge?"

There was a moment of static, followed by Beckett's voice and an odd background noise that sounded vaguely like retching.

"Rodney's a bit preoccupied at the moment..." There was mumbling – Rodney's strained voice, then Hermiod's flat, crisp tone and words.

"Rodney says Carlyle can do it from his end, give it a moment."

John went through another quick systems check until emergency lights flashed in his peripheral and he heard the clunk and thud of the bay doors starting toward sliding open, along with the mechanical warning klaxons. The doors moaned open to a sunny sky and waving ocean of tawny grass like the wide-open wheat fields of Kansas. John powered up the engines, then pushed the controls forward and sideways steering the agile F-302 from the bay into the wide open world. He pulled up until the view screen was filled with sky, arched in a loop, then flipped the ship right-side up to speed over the grounded Daedalus. The back flip had shown him no pirate vessel hovering uncomfortably above.

John risked moving away from the Daedalus to climb a little higher for a broader view. He loved these ships – their agility, easy handling, and the ability to pull of any move stopping short of hovering like a chopper. John saw the labyrinth-like field of rocks off to his right, and something metallic flashing in the sunlight. John steered toward it, and smiled when it came into view.

There it was – the pirate ship, keeping the maze of rocks between it and the Daedalus. Even had the Daedalus been turned facing the rocks, the pirate ship would have remained nicely hidden and incapable of being shot at.

Something dark stretching across the horizon on the other side of the ship pulled John's attention upward. He squinted curiously at the mass he automatically took to be rain clouds. They were darker than any storm clouds he had ever seen, almost pitch black, fading to smoky gray higher up. John steered higher to shoot over the pirate ship before it had a chance to lock onto him. He closed the distance between him and the clouds.

And realized they weren't clouds.

Clouds don't roil and billow in oily undulation like that. John's eyes popped wide.

"Holy freakin' crap," he breathed, then flipped on the radio. "Hey guys? I think I know why the pirates want the shields up so damn bad."

John angled around to head back, turning his head, unable to pull his eyes from the writhing claws of flames licking up the dry grass as though it were soaked in kerosene.

-----------------------------

TBC...

A/N: And now you know. Break out the marshmallows, the hotdogs, and the oxygen masks 'cause we're gonna have an all natural cook out!


	9. Meeting of the Masterminds

A/N: Three more chapters left after this one. More chocolate coins for all since Sparrow has hidden the rum.

Ch. 9

"Forest fire!" Rodney squeaked.

"Prairie fire, McKay," John's voice responded. "And just from the few seconds I was watching I can tell it's burning fast. We must have damaged their shields when we fired back, which is why they're so anxious for our shields to get up and running, and I suggest we placate them on this one. That fire looks bad."

McKay wiped his mouth clean of the last vestiges of vomit from his mouth using a Kleenex. "Carlyle's on it and I sent Henderson and Cox to help."

"Those names mean absolutely nothing to me, McKay."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "I got guys on it, all right? Hermiod went with them..."

A flash of silver bright light stabbed into Rodney's eyes, slicing all the way to his brain. He winced, snarling in frustration, and blinking rapidly trying to get the spark of migraine lights out of his eyes. When he turned his head, he saw several of the marines pointing weapons at a willowy man in a ragged brown coat and fogged goggles. Even with the goggles on, Rodney could tell this guy was more pissed than alarmed.

"Why is there a smaller ship sky-borne? It one of yours?"

Rodney's jaw went slack. It was scary how well Sheppard could peg the bad guy, or maybe it was more simply being able to predict fellow fighters. The pirate shifted his goggled gaze to each occupant of the med bay. "Well?"

Rodney twitched his head, snapping himself from his astonishment. "Uh... He, uh... We got a little nervous when you wouldn't tell us why you wanted the shields fixed. We thought – maybe – that you might have had someone chasing you. We sent a ship up to patrol, just to play it safe... Oh, and to check out any damage on the outer hull," Rodney added for good measure. "I mean is that all right? He making you nervous or something? Because we can call him back..."

"Do it," the man said.

SGA

"McKay to Sheppard."

"Yo," John said, zipping over the rock field.

"Jig is up, time to come home."

"Will do," John said. He swung around to skim over the Daedalus. Something flashed, something metal but not the same kind of metal as the Daedalus. John swung around again and circled the object silver-blue and glaringly bright against the Daedalus' gray skin. It was round, domed, and John smirked at its resemblance to a steel zit.

John zoomed in as close as he felt it safe. The object wasn't all that plastered to the uneven surface. In fact, it's hold was precarious, which meant that whatever this thing was, it didn't belong, was probably recently added, and was meant to be removed at some point in time.

It prodded John's suspicion enough to make that time now. He swung around wide, then dropped low, coming straight at the object. He targeted the space between the object and the Daedalus, and fired. There was a small explosion beneath the object that sent it flying and flipping from the skin, over the side to the ground raising a cloud of dirt, seeds, and dead grass.

The radio crackled, and Rodney's shrill voice followed after. "What the hell was that!"

"Close shave – literally. I'll explain when I get back."

John shot out over the end of the Daedalus, arched around, and slowed to ease into the bay. Everything after that was left up to the autopilot, guiding the F-302 into it's original spot. As soon as it settled, John flipped switches, powering the engines down and opening the cockpit. Ronon was back, waiting at the bottom of the ladder with the wheel-chair. John rolled his eyes, and rolled the phantom joint pains out of his shoulders.

"Beckett needs to realize how uncool this is," he said, pulling off the helmet. He moved slow as he emerged from the F-302 onto the ladder, then down it, walking on tip-toe since it hurt less. He dropped into the chair rather than go gently, and despite his earlier statement, ended up sighing in relief.

"What did you see?" Ronon said, wheeling the chair out of the bay. Lights flashed and the bay doors hummed as they closed.

"Prairie fire, and the bad guys on the other side of that rock field just outside. Oh, plus some kind of a metal _tick_ hitching a ride on the Daedalus."

"Tick?"

"Yeah. Something like it. I don't know what it was but I sure as hell knew it didn't belong."

"I'm guessing that's the reason behind the ship shuddering like it did."

John grinned. "I used to be told the best way to get rid of a tick is to burn it off. Same difference."

Ronon moved fast, taking long strides that got them back to the infirmary in no time.

"Hey Rodney..." John began as they entered. He clapped his mouth shut to see the remaining marines surrounding a man in a ragged coat. The man was looking around in bewilderment, as though uncertain as to where the hell he was. John arched an eyebrow in mild surprise. " Rodney?"

Rodney looked up from the laptop he was still working with, scowling. "What the hell was that explosion?"

John didn't take his eyes from the unwelcome visitor. "I saw something on the Daedalus that didn't belong. Shot it off."

The pirate's head snapped around to land his hidden gaze on John. The eyes might have been obscured, but his slack jaw and paling face told John enough. He narrowed his eyes at the man. "I'm guessing you didn't want me to do that," John said.

Rodney looked between the man and John. "What? What are you talking about? What thing?"

"Some big, round metal thing. It's outside. Kind of reminds be of a giant tracking device, but I'm thinking' it's a little more than that."

Rodney's eyes went round. "You think it's what they've been using to jump in and out of here?"

"Someone grab that guy's LSD," John said.

Lt. Goering – a tall, heavy built marine with a bandaged wrist, stepped forward yanking the pirate's X-ray LSD from one of the large pockets of his coat. Goering looked at it, then handed it over to John. John held the LSD with the now blank screen facing McKay. "That answer your question?"

Rodney set the PC aside to slide off the bed. He took the LSD from John with an expression as though having seen the thing for the first time. "Yes. Very. I need to see that round thing myself."

John shook his head. "Bad idea. It looked too big to drag inside and now that it isn't working that makes going outside unwise. Those pirates are going to want to talk face to face and I don't want anyone out in the open where they can be grabbed. Let's just take that," John gestured at the LSD, "as a sign that we no longer have to worry about anyone beaming in."

"What about him?" Goering asked, prodding the pirate with the business end of a zat.

"Secure him," John said. "We may need him later."

John could feel the man glaring at him. "We aren't going to like this," the pirate said. "There will be retaliations."

Rodney was the one to glare back. "Not if they want the shields up and running. If you want us to play nice then your people better play nice."

"Take him to the back," John said. "Stick him in a closet. I don't want him listening in to anything we have to say."

Goering nodded, escorting the man personally with two marines watching his six. John wheeled over to the bed, locked the chair, and hauled himself up to shuffle over and ease himself onto the edge. Beckett was by his side, helping him to ease back against the upraised head. John wasn't officially sitting out for the count, he just needed to rest his body in something more comfortable than a wheel chair, just for a few minutes.

"So now what?" Rodney asked, sitting at the foot of his own bed. "You blew off their little skeleton key into our domain, and goggle-boy's right about them not being happy about it. If they're not pissed then they're scared. They might drag hostages over to shoot them in front of us just to make a statement."

John shook his head. "No, they won't. They need us, even more now that they can't come and go as they please. They know they still have us where they want us. All blowing that metal tick off did was make communications difficult, and give us a scratch of an advantage. If they want to talk, then they're going to have to come to us. Plus we have one of them, and if my theory about their numbers is right..." John's thoughts moved in fast, precise order; almost too fast in the sudden exhilaration of what they'd now gained since blowing that metal zit away. "Okay, forget what I said about a scratch advantage. This could be a little bigger."

"How do you mean, lad?" Carson asked. He picked up John's wrist to check his pulse.

"I mean they're going to want their man back. We could do a hostage exchange or something."

"Except there's no one person we need," Rodney challenged. "In terms of repairs, we have everyone we need. Getting one person back isn't going to do squat except ensure that one person isn't made an example should it all come down to that."

John glowered in Rodney's direction. "It was an example, McKay. I'm still working out the details." He sighed, and massaged the dull throb out of his forehead. "There's a plan here, we're just not at the point of seeing it, yet."

"So what do we do until then?" Rodney said. It was a legit question but it still felt like Rodney was challenging him, shooting down in advance whatever plan John had in mind. John knew he was reaching the ragged edge when he started looking on the dark side of life. He was tired, hurting, hungry but with no real appetite. At the extreme moment there was nothing to be done, except his mind refused to accept that and kept trying to urge John into doing _something_.

"We wait," he finally said, with finality, sealing the decision to both Rodney and himself. "We wait for the pirates to come to us, which means we need someone on the bridge keeping watch." John squinted. "Does the transporter work yet?"

"No," Rodney said. "Power drain had targeted that as well."

John nodded. "Then we're going to have to talk to them outside. We'll need to prepare for that. Have people positioned where they'll be able to get a clean shot if things get dirty. They may demand that a few of their guys be put on board to keep watch – out of desperation to keep control." John blinked and had to fight to get his eyelids back open. "I'm thinking... it should probably take them a good half hour to get through those rocks, maybe less." He sighed, and rubbed his eyes hoping a little massage would coax them to stay open. They were in the middle of a damn hostage/siege situation. One would think sleep a prospect that seemed miles and miles away. It was smacking John left and right, hitting harder each time his eyelids closed.

Beckett placed his hand on John's shoulder. "It's all right to catch a quick nap, lad. If we're going to wait, we might as well make good use of it. You'll be able to think more clearly once you've taken a break."

John looked at Carson beneath his eyelids. "Carson, there's a damn prairie fire and pirates holding our people. I can't afford a nap."

"Like hell you can't," Carson said, and was already pulling a blanket off of the neighboring bed and draping it over John's legs up to his stomach. "Thirty minutes, at most, while we wait. They get here sooner then I'll wake you. In the meantime, the shield gets fixed, leaving one less problem to worry about. I'll handle the rest, get someone up to the bridge to keep watch. You just get yourself sorted out for some clearer thinking."

John nodded. He didn't have any energy left to even argue, especially over such a harshly poignant point. The next time his eyelids closed, he let them remain closed, settling back against the bed. It was odd, almost scary, how easy it was to drift off even with so much going on. No mind trying to wander, no muscles remaining tense. It was as though his brain had given up on continually recognizing that they were wallowing through one hell of a crisis.

The same thing had happened during the march. Except he'd never dropped, just slept on his feet.

SGA

To go out and look at alien technology or not to go out. Rodney was, once again, even with the Daedalus down and half their people gone, completely and utterly useless. Carlyle had called in a few minutes after Sheppard had passed out, giving the update that the shields were ready to go and that all that was missing was the power. It wasn't as if the shields had needed a massive overhaul to begin with, just the replacement of a few wires that had shorted out. So Rodney was left with nothing more to do than monitor Sheppard's rest. It was a rest that looked pretty deep, smoothing out the pain and stress lines on Sheppard's face, causing his chest to rise and fall slow and steady. Rodney didn't like it. There had to be something seriously wrong with someone to sleep that deep in the middle of all hell breaking loose. Not mentally wrong – well, perhaps there was a mental component, Rodney wouldn't hold it past Sheppard – more like physical. Rodney's own brain was becoming jealous, and prodding Rodney with lethargy.

Except head wounds equaled no nighty-night for Rodney. The moment his own head hit a pillow, Beckett would materialize as if out of nowhere to wake him. So that left McKay wallowing in a mighty big temptation. That metal whats-it John said he'd blown off the Daedalus' outer hull could answer a lot of questions, including just how the hell they were going to get their people back.

Before the prairie fire reached them all.

Rodney had the uncanny impression of being stuck in a video game, or really cliché movie.

Rodney worried the bottom of his lip with his front teeth. In and out, real quick, just for a scan. Rodney glanced over his shoulder to see Carson several beds away beside that marine with the flu. The infirmary was relatively empty except for Carson and the marines way, way, way at the back guarding the closet where their unwanted guest was. The scientists Rodney had sent scattering to make minor repairs, and with the threat of hostiles popping in and out taken care of, the marines were sent to the bridge to keep an eye out for the pirates.

In and out, lickity-split, with no one the wiser.

_Yeah, right._ Carson would know. The man was all seeing. Still, no harm, no foul, and a quick look-see could very well be worth the berating that would follow. Rodney set his tablet to the side to begin slowly, inchingly, sliding off the edge of the bed.

"Where're you going?"

Rodney's knees buckled in panic, and he would have fallen if Ronon hadn't stepped forward to grab him by the arm. He kept hold even after Rodney had found his balance. Rodney stared daggers up at the taller man. He hadn't ever seen the man leave, or come back, but that was Ronon for you.

"The bathroom. Why, do I need an escort?"

The Satedan gave him a smirk that was supposed to be amused but still sent shivers down Rodney's spine.

"You were going to look at that machine Sheppard said he blew off the ship."

Rodney blinked fast to cover his astonishment, then reared his head back in a scrounged look of righteous indignation. "Was not?" He tried not to wince. Attending various poker nights had made Rodney come to realize that his biggest give-away when bluffing was to speak in the fewest words possible. Short, sweet, to the point – his complete antithesis.

"Were too," Ronon said before Rodney had a chance to lengthen his sentence.

"Was not! Do I look crazy enough to go out there when the bad guys are supposed to be on their way?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?"

Rodney deflated, and averted his gaze to scowl at the floor. "No."

Ronon finally released his arm and stepped back. Rodney fumed for a moment, cursing his own predictability, when sudden inspiration struck like a flick to the back of his head, making him perk. He snapped his finger and pointed at Ronon. "You could come with me."

Ronon arched an eyebrow. "I think you just answered your own question, McKay."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Look, when those pirates do finally drop by, someone is going to have to go out and talk to them since I doubt they'll want to come on board and we definitely don't want them on board. We get some marines to provide cover in case they try anything. I get to look at the device Sheppard shot off, and Sheppard doesn't have to increase the damage to his feet by avoiding the wheelchair to maintain an air of macho leadership. I mean come on, Ronon, look at him."

Ronon did.

"Even with the nap I doubt he can take much more of this."

Rodney's heart pounded. He was suggesting a lot just for a quick look at that device. More than that, he suddenly realized that his ploy actually had a point. The more he thought about it, the more his heart plummeted another two feet. Rodney wasn't even going to try and argue that he had excellent diplomatic skills, and Ronon had never been big on talk, just big on shooting. Carson, well, in the face of a medical emergency he was all business. In the face of danger, his brain continually attempted to shut down.

That left Sheppard, who Rodney highly doubted was up for even so much as a friendly chit-chat with non-hostiles. Sheppard was injured, worn out, which the pirates could take as weakness. The bald guy had already deemed Sheppard a trouble-maker, which meant they would probably shoot him before even initiating conversation, getting the trouble-maker out of their way for easier access to the Daedalus. Rodney, however, although injured himself, was still useful. They wouldn't shoot him because they needed him.

Crappy diplomatic skills or not, Rodney was better suited to talking with the pirates more than anyone else.

Rodney had just out-thought himself into a corner. He slumped, muttering a curse under his breath. "You know what?" he said, straightening. "Forget I said anything."

Ronon grunted. "Actually, you're right. It would be better if you talked to these pirate people. They'd probably just shoot Sheppard."

Rodney didn't say anything. If Ronon was thinking along the same lines (unnerving as that was) then there was probably some truth to it. Sheppard would be pissed, but at least he'd be alive.

"Besides," Ronon said, looking back at Rodney. "The most they're going to is demand having some of their men on board to keep an eye on things. But if what Sheppard said is true, and they have a problem with their numbers, they might not want to risk it. If anything, they'll just ask you to hand over their man back, maybe make threats against the hostages. But with that fire coming, they aren't going to do anything that'll slow down the repairs."

"But the shields are ready to go."

Ronon shrugged. "They don't know that. And they don't know you. Just say you're still working on 'em and are almost done. Without that machine on the hull, we're the ones with the most control."

Rodney nodded sagely, then grimaced uncomfortably. "Yeah, but they may still make an example out of someone, like they did before, just to reestablish control."

Ronon was silent for a moment, then, "Yeah, maybe."

Rodney groaned helplessly. "That's really not helping things. Look, I told their buddy that Sheppard went out to check damage on the hull. We'll say shooting that machine off was an accident because we thought it's what was messing with some of the systems. Maybe they'll buy it and refrain from shooting anyone." Rodney gave Ronon what he hoped was a very hard, penetrating look. "Listen, Conan, as much as you might not like it, we're going to have to really, really, really suck up to these guys if we don't want any more bloodshed. They're not going to be happy we shot off their toy, and they're going to be less happy when I lie to them about repairs taking their sweet time."

"I know," Ronon replied, and sounded quite considerate rather than insulted. Rodney was taken back into speechlessness for a second.

"Well... Good. Glad you do." He then sighed, and sagged back against the edge of the bed. Sherbet stirred, rose, stretched, then trotted over to Rodney to rub up against his hip. Rodney patted him absently. "We have no clue what these guys will do."

"We have an idea," Ronon said. "That's enough. We know they'll want their man back, and we know they're going to ask for something or do something that will put them back in control."

"So, in other words, we're just going to have to wait and see what that something is, and plan from there."

Ronon nodded. "Yep."

Rodney narrowed his eyes to slits. "That sucks."

"No one said it would be easy."

"It usually never is."

--------------------------

Rodney didn't try to convince Carson of anything. He and Ronon slipped off when the Scottish doctor left to go fetch some voodoo implement of medical torture. Rodney then removed his radio, just for the time being to avoid verbal repercussions.

Rodney and Ronon made a stop at the bridge to get two marines to join them, and two more to hang back and keep them covered with a sniper's rifle. After that he made a quick stop at his room to grab his trusty tablet PC. They then headed to one of the many emergency exits throughout the Daedalus rather than risking opening the massive bay doors that made it too easy for someone stealthy enough to slip on board.

Along the way, Rodney spotted a small, flat disk in the middle of the corridor several feet ahead. Everyone stopped, stilling with bated breath, waiting for the thing to do... _something_. Ronon pointed at the thing using is 9-mil.

"Sheppard pulled something similar from one of the pirate guys' pocket."

Rodney whipped out his tablet. The disk was giving off some pretty strong power readings, but they were stable rather than charging toward the grand finale of either exploding or stunning them. Rodney suspected stunning, because something alien had knocked them all unconscious and ripe for the picking. Feeling uncharacteristically reckless – which he usually was when curiosity got the best of him – he crept forward as though approaching a sleeping skunk he'd much preferred remain asleep. When he was close enough, he knelt beside the device and looked it over.

Appearance-wise, it was like a blue-silver land-mine combined with a smoke detector, with a crystal dome center. There were two small lights, one blinking blue and the other dark. The color coding made no sense, but a blinking light was a blinking light no matter the galaxy – the thing had completed it's task and was now waiting to be reset or something. Either way, it wasn't going to be stunning anyone at the immediate moment. Rodney reached out and gingerly lifted the thing from the floor.

"What is that?" Ronon asked. Rodney jumped and snapped his head around. The Satedan was crouched, craning his neck to peer over Rodney's shoulder. Rodney clenched his teeth.

"Geez! Is it your goal in life to scare us all to death or an unavoidable personality trait? I don't know what it is, but I have an idea." He stuffed the device into his own pocket. "It's also harmless, so we can keep going."

They continued on to the nearest emergency exit, by-passing the airlocks that continued to uphold their anal purpose of sealing off one door before opening the other. Rodney knew it was for a good reason – between pollen and potential diseases, alien atmosphere's were always a pain – it still didn't mean he had to like it. The door opened and a ladder extended to let them down into the knee-high golden grass of the plains. The air smelled sweet of dry grass, as well as pungent as though someone somewhere were having a cook-out. It made Rodney nervous.

Rodney straightened, tugging to straighten his jacket, and sniffed. He could already feel the mucus accumulating as pollen found its way up his nostrils. "All right, people," he began. "Spread out or... Whatever. I'm going to search for that device Sheppard shot off. Make some kind of noise if the Dread Pirate Roberts and his merry band are spotted."

Rodney ignored the heavy-lidded looks the marines gave him. He turned and checked his tablet, following the weak energy signature that he assumed was the device. Along the way, he pulled the small disk from his pocket, looking from it to the tablet. The screen had divided, the above continuing reading the device, the other reading the power from the disk. And it really was a lot of power. The disk still had the potential to do what it was meant to do, but most likely at a shorter range.

"I think we're here," Ronon said.

Rodney snatched his gaze up from the screen. He stumbled to a halt, eyes widening, at the sight of sunlight flashing off a large-domed surface about the size of a puddle-jumper.

"Oh wow," he breathed. He lurched forward and kicked through the high grass around the thing. The energy signatures were much stronger up close, but not all that strong when compared to the signatures from the disk. Sheppard had knocked this thing quite nicely out of commission. Along with the weak power was a weak signal, fluctuating like a sputtering animal that was going to die sometime in the near future. The fluctuations were similar to what Rodney had seen while pretending to repair the shields, making two and two a hell of a lot easier to put together. He felt like an idiot.

"Of course," he hissed.

"What?" Ronon asked.

"There are signals I'm reading off this thing that I've noticed earlier but didn't pay attention too because they were too short and quick to really worry about. This thing," Rodney kicked at the dome, his boot-toe clunking softly against it, "_is_ how they've been able to beam in and out, along with spy on us, and communicate. Think of it as an advanced version of cutting a hole in the hull, allowing them complete access to us and the Daedalus. Sheppard was right to shoot it off. Or at least I hope he was, if having it shot off doesn't piss off the bad guys."

"Whatever takes the advantage away from the bad guys," Ronon said, "is always a good thing."

"Not if one of our people gets shot for it." Rodney looked back to the disk still clutched in his hand. He turned, bracing his back against the smooth, curved, cool surface of the device as he studied the disk more thoroughly. The larger device was useless, but the smaller one still had power enough to have merit – if Rodney could just figure out how. Maybe if they could find enough of these, they could lay them out in locations where the pirates would have to go, let the disks stun them when they returned with the hostages in tow, while those remaining on the Daedalus stay out of range of the stun blast to separate pirates from hostages.

If they could find enough, and if Rodney could figure out how to turn them on. Turning it over, Rodney noticed some kind of toggle switch on the side. He flipped it using his thumb, heard a small whine like a camera charging, noticed a power surge on his PDA, and panicked.

"Oh crap!" he switched the small toggle, and the device wound down.

At least he knew now how to turn it on.

"McKay," Ronon said in that warning growl of his. "Stop messing with that before you blow us up."

"It's not going to blow us up," Rodney replied dismissively. "Knock us out for a good couple of hours, but not blow us up. They must have turned these on right before they beamed them in. Ronon, give me a boost."

"Boost?"

"Yeah. I want to get on top of this dome, try something out."

Ronon shrugged and stepped closer. He cupped his hands and crouched, forming a step. Rodney placed his heel into it, and gasped when Ronon's 'boost' practically catapulted Rodney up along the Dome's surface. What Rodney had in mind was no doubt an incredibly bad idea, but a worthy bad idea if what he learned from the experiment could help them in some way. He started sliding back down the dome, so switched the disk on and shoved it up toward the apex where it stayed. He let himself slide to the ground, and dropped onto his stomach.

"Ronon, down!" he called. Ronon dropped. Rodney looked up to see a pencil thin blue-beam of light about five and a half feet tall, give or take, that lasted merely seconds before expanding into a wavering pulse that expanded a good ten to twelve feet before disintegrating.

"McKay!" Ronon snarled.

"Will you relax!" Rodney snapped back. He pushed himself to his feet, dusting his hands off onto his trousers so he could rub his hands together without worrying about grit slicing up his skin. The sudden motion from lying to standing made him waver for a bit, but didn't diminish his excitement.

"Yes, yes, yes! Ronon, another boost, we need that thing."

Ronon pushed himself more slowly, scowling yet complying. He cupped his hands, and pretty much tossed Rodney toward the top of the dome enough for him to grab the disk and slide back down. The toggle had automatically switched off, and the power readings, though lower, were still pretty good.

"I think we have ourselves a handy little surprise," Rodney said.

"You don't think the pirate guys saw that?" Ronon asked.

Rodney shook his head, grinning proudly over his discovery. "Not with us being on the other side of the Daedalus, and not with the beam being at a level for the Daedalus to block from view."

At that, Ronon seemed to perk out of his initial annoyance. "So how exactly do you plan on using that thing?"

"Well, if we could get more, I know lot of ways we can use it. Until then... I'm still working on that. But at least it's something. That beam was pretty high off the surface – I mean it has to be if you want someone thoroughly stunned. Hitting the legs wouldn't do much except make us temporarily crippled, not unconscious." They'd learned that the hard way thanks to the wraith and their stunners. Hits to the limb weren't a knock-out, but they still sucked.

Ronon nodded, then his hand shot to his ear. "One of the men keeps asking what that light was. What do I tell him?"

"What I told you – to relax. Tell him it was just an experiment."

Rodney became too engrossed with the disk to hear how Ronon responded over the com. This disk was an advantage, a much needed advantage. All that was left was forming a plan B if A couldn't pan out due to lack of sufficient disk numbers to use. There was the one they'd pulled from their current prisoner, plus this one, probably one or two not recovered by the pirates scattered throughout...

"They're coming," Ronon suddenly announced.

Rodney stuffed the disk back into his pocket. "Damn it! They just had to be punctual, didn't they!"

They went at a trot to the other side of the Daedalus, arriving in time to see baldy and five other men wading through the grass. Two of them were dragging something on a wheeled sledge. The something was barrel-shaped, and metallic green rather than blue, like a steel beer-keg spray-painted for St. Patrick's day. The look on baldy's face screamed extreme displeasure, and he had his rifle unslung and at the ready. The two marines that had been keeping watch moved to flank both Rodney and Ronon. Ronon moved a step forward and to the side, closer to Rodney, hovering like a body-guard. It actually helped to stem back the rising tide of terror trying to choke Rodney.

When there was about five feet of space between the two groups, Baldy and his cronies stopped. Baldy was silent as he looked from each Lantean face. Whatever he saw, it deepened his scowl from unhappy to seething.

"Where's the little beast?" he demanded.

Ronon's brow formed a confused crease. "Huh?"

"Sheppard," Rodney explained. "He's talking about Sheppard. And he's indisposed at the moment," he said a little louder.

"Do I look like I care?" Baldy stated in smoothly controlled irritation. "Bring him out here, now, along with our man you made stranded. Or do you need some incentive?" Baldy's pudgy hand started a deliberate journey toward the com at his ear. Rodney's heart slammed and his own hands shot up.

"No, wait! Hold on! Blowing that dome thing off was an accident. Sheppard went out to survey any damage to the ship's outer hall. He saw that thing, thought it was damage, so blew it off. He wasn't trying to cause any trouble."

Baldy's lip curled in a sneer. "You really aren't getting me. I – don't – care. It was still him, and he's starting to bother me. So just quiet your voice trap and bring him and my man out. After that, you start powering up the shields while we start bringing your people over. Seeing as how that little beast thought it would be nice to take a flight, I'm confident he told you about what's heading our way?"

Rodney nodded. "Yeah, a big ass fire. So why do you want Sheppard if you're just going to be bringing everyone back?"

Badly smirked, and that sent cold shooting down McKay's back.

"I didn't say I'd be bringing them back all at once. More like a group at a time. The little beast's to be last. Now bring him out so I can have him out of the way."

"Then you don't want him," Ronon said suddenly. "You want me. I'm the one who told him to blow that thing off the ship. I'm the one who ordered him to go up in the first place. You've seen him, the condition he's in. Do you honestly think he's that much trouble? Sheppard's not even awake. All the action eventually led to him passing out. I'm the one you need to worry about."

Baldy just stared at Ronon. It was apparent, at least to Rodney who felt wound tight enough to tell the difference between male and female flys had any been present, that Baldy wasn't buying what Ronon was selling. Rodney hadn't really thought about it until now, but he was starting to get the impression that Colonel Sheppard and baldy had had a bit of a roe some time when Rodney wasn't present to see it. Baldy wasn't stupid. He knew Sheppard wasn't exactly the picture of health. So the only way he was going to assume that a scrawny man with a limp and a broken arm to be trouble was if he'd proved himself to be trouble from the start. This wasn't just about getting John out of the way, this was personal.

A tight knot was expanding in Rodney's throat. Suddenly he was no longer second guessing his decision of being the one to talk with baldy. People didn't take kindly to underweight invalids getting the better of them. Baldy probably would have shot Sheppard on sight, and waved it off in a blasé but self-satisfied manner as Sheppard being 'made an example of'.

"Funny," badly said. "I've yet to see you actually cause me grief. The one you call Sheppard, on the other hand..."

Ronon stepped closer. "Was following _my_ orders. He didn't even want to fly in the smaller ship. He was tired, hurting, but I made him because he's the only one left who can fly. You want someone to pay for giving you trouble, then I'm the one you want."

Baldy still wasn't buying it. And yet neither did he push for someone to bring Sheppard out. Baldy rubbed at his jaw, sliding his hand up his fat cheek to slide his hand back and forth over his reflective scalp. Extra reflective due to a nice thick sheen of sweat that was covering it. Rodney's heart started pounding in a surge of hope.

Baldy was nervous, anxious, and more than likely in a rush. Why else bring the giant recharge battery this early rather than try and reestablish dominance? This was good, very good, advantageous good. Baldy had one hell of a weakness and it was creeping in closer even as they spoke. The only set back was that the weakness went double for McKay and the rest. They had people on the ship that would be the first to succumb to the fire.

_Come on,_ Rodney thought. _Come on, we don't have time for this. _He didn't whole-heartedly agree with the Satedan giving himself up. He never approved of anything that he deemed as the opposite of self-preservation and survival. He attributed it with his own self-preservation tendency, and wanting others to share the tendency in order to feel less guilty. But that was just self-depreciation talking. Several steps above that was a loathing toward seeing others hurt, or in a position where they could get hurt.

For that same reason, he couldn't refute what Ronon was doing. If baldy didn't take the former runner, then he was going to take Sheppard. Ronon was in a position to be an advantage in and of himself, Sheppard was not. This was a good thing, it really was. Rodney didn't want Ronon to be taken, yet neither did he want Sheppard to be taken.

Baldy's leg began twitching as he looked back and forth from over his shoulder to Ronon. "Fine," he said at last. Rodney released a long held breath. Baldy pointed at Rodney, then the ship. "You, bring our man. When we come back, and I see you've been up to what I find I don't like, then I'm taking the one you call Sheppard. And if you think he's crippled now, wait until I break both his legs."

Rodney gaped in horror. He had no doubt, what so ever, that baldy was dead serious in his threat.

"Go now!" Baldy snapped. Rodney flinched, turned, and high-tailed it back to the Daedalus, sucking in lungfuls of acrid tasting air.

---------------------------

TBC...


	10. Sucker Punched

A/N: Mir'kas for everyone! They'll eat anything but prefer fruit, especially mangoes. Leashes are useless unless they involve a body harness. Cages are useless, period. It'll go great with your Shep clone if you have one.

Ch. 10

Running from the plains to the Daedalus, climbing the ladder, then running from the emergency exit to the medbay left Rodney wheezing, sweating, and with a rather sharp cramp in his ribs. He was focused primarily on his goal of reaching the medbay to fetch the pirate, while simultaneously wracking his aching brain for some kind of a plan. Nothing else mattered, not his wheezing, sweating, cramp, or headache.

The moment he reached the infirmary he slid to a stop. He was at his destination, without a plan, and only steps away from where the pirate was locked up. He wanted to linger, to force himself to plan before escorting the pirate to his comrades. Except Rodney was quite certain that the longer he lingered, the more impatient baldy would get. The more impatient he got, the more he would give into the temptation of shooting Ronon to make his point and speed things along. It wasn't a guarantee, but the fat captain had already shown himself to be trigger happy from the start.

Rodney wiped the sweat tickling down his face using the sleeve of his jacket. The metallic scent of his own sweat and lingering smoke clinging to his clothes stabbed into his nostrils, making breathing an ordeal. He glanced around the near-empty infirmary. He could hear Carson muttering something at the back about Stiles and cultures, and a nurse respond. Everyone else was either on the bridge or spread throughout the ship making minor repairs.

Rodney's gaze swept over John, then did a double take.

John was still laying down, his upper body slightly elevated, and his eyes open in slits.

"Rodney?" Sheppard croaked. He shifted, grunting, and pushed himself up onto his elbows. He looked Rodney over suspiciously. "You coming down with something? Your face is all flushed."

Rodney would have hugged Sheppard if he'd been certain that Sheppard wouldn't have slugged him for it afterwards, or in the least shoved him away. Rodney needed advice – help – and he needed it now from a brain that had a better chance of thinking in a straight line.

Rodney hurried over to John's bedside, and explained the situation at a speed that was rapid even to him. "Baldy and his goons showed up with the recharge device demanding that we bring their man out. They wanted to take you as punishment for knocking their device off but Ronon's taking your place. We know there's an opportunity to help out people taken hostage but I haven't figured out how yet. Maybe give Ronon something like a weapon but I'm pretty sure they're going to search him over so that's out..."

John held up his hand to halt the speedy reiteration. "Wait, wait, wait..." he squinted his eyes, "what?"

John was obviously still groggy, but Rodney didn't have the time or patience to repeat himself. "We need to give Ronon the means to escape. The pirates are going to take him, and I would like to use that to our advantage, but I haven't figured out how yet."

John's body snapped as rigid as it would allow, and his eyes opened wide. "Give him something. A weapon..."

Rodney huffed an impatient breath. "I already said they would just search him over! Probably twice. Look, I don't think we have a lot of time here so any other suggestions that don't involve Ronon getting shot sooner or later would be very helpful right now."

Sheppard didn't seem to be listening. His sights had turned from Rodney to the far end of the infirmary with the closet where the stranded pirate was stashed.

"Don't give it to Ronon," John said. "Just have it where Ronon can reach it."

"What!" Rodney barked. "What do you mean..." He looked in the direction John was looking, wondering if seeing invisible answers on the wall was a superior ATA gene thing only. Rodney's brain was sluggish, petulant, but it eventually ground out the answer that John's more rested brain had drummed out. Rodney's eyebrows shot to his scalp. "Oooooh. But... How are we going to tell him that he needs to pick pirate boy's pocket for the means to get out of this mess?"

John shrugged. "I'm pretty good at being obvious and cryptic at the same time."

Rodney refused to waste time responding with the scathing remark begging to be said. He shook his head vehemently. "Oh no, you're not going out there. Baldy's looking for payback and the moment he sees you then he'll change his mind about taking Ronon, and you're not up for pulling a Steve McQueen.

Rodney expected a scowl from Sheppard, not a look of melancholy defeat, and it astonished him into momentary speechlessness.

"You're right," John said. He looked back at Rodney. "That'll be up to you, Rodney. Look, Ronon's smart, he knows we're not going to leave him behind let alone empty handed. Just get the message across as best you can. It shouldn't be too hard. Most people tune you out when you go on and on about something."

Rodney gave John his coldest glower. "Gee, thanks."

"But Ronon won't," John continued. "He'll get you no matter how you deliver the message."

"Fine, whatever. So we have a plan, great. Shall we leave him with a zat or 9-mil?"

"Zat and flashbang?"

Rodney slapped his thigh repetitively, his arm thumping against the stunner disk tucked into his pocket. He paused at the contact, and stiffened in a perk of realization. He grinned. "Actually, I have something much better. All I need is a piece of paper, pen, and tape."

SGA

Ronon longed for his gun in a way that hurt, and not because he had so many targets to chose from right in front of him. Something about the stinging scent of distant smoke not intermixed with the spicier scent of cooking food awoke something within him. Something like anger, both primal and controlled. An anger that normally surged through him like fuel during the heat of battle. Strong smoke-scent incited too many memories that made him more tense than he already was. He clenched his fists at his side to keep them in check. He didn't need his gun to inflict some serious damage, he just preferred it when time wasn't playing fair.

Ronon stared at the bald man who stood expressionless and still while his men fidgeted. The bald man was confident. He still believed himself in control, and pretty much was unless Rodney managed to figure something out. Baldy had had his men pat Ronon down. They took the knives hidden where they could be found to distract from the knives not meant to be found. Then they 'frisked' a little more deeply until the knives not meant to be found were found. The edgy marines flanking Ronon had gone slack-jawed about it. Ronon just grinned. He'd pegged these 'pirates' from the start as the kind hiding a plethora of knives (or some other form of small, deadly weaponry) on their own person – some meant to be found to distract from the ones not meant to be found. So they knew what to look for.

For the first time ever in Ronon's life, dating back to when he first joined the Satedan army, he was completely and thoroughly weaponless. Not counting his fists, of course, which helped to hold back feelings of naked vulnerability.

Ronon folded his arms when clenching his fists didn't cut it. The longer he stood there facing the enemy, getting lungfuls of smoke-scent, the more he wanted to hit someone. If Rodney didn't get back soon, Ronon doubted he'd be able to stem the desire for much longer.

Baldy's head shifted upward like an animal catching a sudden sound. Ronon glanced over his shoulder to see Rodney, a marine, and the pirate between them heading their way. Looking back, he saw the bald man smirking, which put another dent in Ronon's self-control.

"Glad to see your priorities in order," the bald man called. "But I suggest you don't come any further. Tell your men to back off and release ours."

Ronon had expected this. No way was the bald man going to let Rodney or anyone else get within distance enough to Ronon in order to drop something into his pocket. Ronon just hoped Rodney or at least one of the soldiers had expected it. Glancing back showed Ronon a very tense and mildly annoyed Rodney, instead of a surprised and rather panicky Rodney. Ronon smiled mentally. Rodney knew.

"Fine," McKay snapped. "I'd like to warn you that we have men hidden in strategic locations with rifles that'll take your head off if you so much as punch Ronon in the face."

The bald man inclined his head. "Completely understandable. We've no reason to hurt your man. We merely wish him out of range of being a distraction."

"Good, because I'd stake my life on him being pretty much defenseless now. I'm sure you picked him clean – hair, sleeves, pockets especially since you can't trust what people carry in their pockets. Maybe you'll want to pick your buddy's pockets too, see what souvenirs he picked up from our ship. No offense but you guys kind of strike me as the type into pick-pocketing."

Ronon narrowed his eyes that were sharp enough to pick up the sweat glittering at where the hairline stopped at the temples on Rodney's face.

"You guys have a lot of pockets," McKay continued. "You could hide a whole freakin' arsenal in there. I'm surprised you didn't take some ship apart, hide the pieces in those pockets. That way you could've just slapped the pieces together and we wouldn't be in this mess."

"You talk too much," said the bald man. "You know that? Now let my man go before the fire finally reaches my ship with _your_ people still trapped inside. Although if you wish to idle the time with pointless yammering, I'd be happy to oblige. Just let me call the rest of my men so they can join in on the fun." Ronon looked back to see the bald man's hand heading toward the com at his ear.

"Fine!" Rodney barked. "Here, take him. Ronon!"

Ronon looked at McKay. McKay squinted at Ronon.

"Play nice. Don't do anything hasty."

Ronon raised both eyebrows. Rodney was being subtle, and doing a fairly decent job of it. A normal McKay farewell was supposed to involve something insulting and a demand that no one do anything stupid that would get them all killed.

Hands cinched tight around Ronon's bicep to begin dragging him away. The captured pirate was released taking long strides to join his comrades, grinning so broadly Ronon jerked with the need to wipe that smile clean off. He jerked again, dislodging the grips on his arms.

"I can walk," he growled.

"Don't try anything funny, big man," the bald man said.

Ronon gave him a simpering grin. "If I wanted to try something funny, you'd be laughing by now."

Bald man chuckled, while his men tightened their grips on their rifles.

Ronon was shoved forward. He scuffed his boot-toe into the dirt, purposefully causing himself to stumble. His staggering brought him in close enough to the now freed pirate to slip his hand into the man's coat pocket and slip it out with the smooth, flat disk in hand. He slid the disk up into the sleeve of his coat, angling his wrist enough to keep it there. The entire transfer lasted the few seconds during Ronon's passing by of the freed pirate. It would have been faster if the disk had been slightly smaller.

Ronon felt something on the disk's underside, something coarse compared to the disk's slick surface. He tucked his hand into his sleeve and peeled the slip of palm-sized parchment from the disk to clutch loosely in his hand. Pretending to scratch an itch on the side of his face, he read the fast scrawl on the parchment out of the corner of his eye.

_'One hour. Good luck.'_

SGA

As much as he hated to do so, Rodney left the recharge device with the marines so he could haul ass back to the Daedalus, up the ladder, into the smoke free halls, and back into the med-bay. Rodney skidded to a stop, gasping in lungfuls of air that burned his trachea on the way down. John was sitting on the edge of the bed in stiff expectation, ready to go. Rodney pointed over his shoulder yet couldn't quite talk yet until his lungs had been satisfied.

Rodney wasn't going to wait. "He... I think... I don't know... The message... Clear as I can... Man, I hope... he got it. I said pockets... enough times... to want to... hit myself."

John smiled. "Then he got it." Then dropped it into a frown. "You think an hour'll be enough time?"

Rodney nodded, mopping sweat from his face with his sleeve. "Oh yeah." He felt less winded, but more sore, and would sell his laptop for a drink. "Took the Jolly Rogers about twenty, twenty-five minutes to get over here after you blew their device off. It'll take them about that long to get back. That's about forty minutes in all give or take, and Ronon moves fast when he's in a hurting frame of mind..."

John nodded. "Big, resounding yes, got it. Now get the chair. I want to be ready for my part."

Rodney did as asked, yet when he brought the chair around, he stopped, hesitating just out of Sheppard's reach. "Are you sure there's no one else who can fly around here?"

"Uh... There's one guy, but he has a head injury. Come on, McKay, bring the chair over."

Rodney continued to hesitate. Part of their plan was for John to run interference in an F-302 allowing Ronon and the rest to make a clean break. A fear that had nothing to do with their current situation twisted in Rodney's gut. It was a fear he didn't often feel, or in all honesty tried very hard not to feel. Fear for others – it was hard to except, hard to handle, so for those reasons tended to mutate into anger. It was a helpless fear that was completely useless when compared to the panic that pushed for self-preservation. And there was no getting rid of it unless he managed to convince the thick-headed numb skull of the futility of what they were trying to do – or in other cases (the aftermath) when that same thick-headed numb skull was no longer in danger.

"Are you _sure_?" Rodney pressed, leaning in on the handles of the chair.

Sheppard frowned severely. "Yes I'm sure. So stop screwing around, we don't have a lot of time here."

Instead of moving forward, Rodney pulled back a little. "Why not just send men on foot to provide cover?"

"Because we don't know if the pirates already have patrols spread out to take down anyone who comes on foot. And if they're as paranoid as I think they are, then they do. And I'm not putting more people at risk."

"And, what, you don't count as more people?"

John's scathing expression was acidic. "McKay!"

"Oh don't _even_ McKay me, Colonel! If you haven't noticed you're pretty unfit for duty yourself. You get shot down and manage to eject before you die, then you're stranded out there. If those pirates get their hands on you, you're dead, no questions asked and no ultimatums. I know you find some kind of sick thrill out of putting your ass on the line..."

"What!" John squeaked.

"But I think you should really reconsider this one and come up with an alternative, because I think I speak for all of us when I say we're pretty sick and tired of the close calls that, one of these days, are going to end rather unpleasantly. I mean, seriously, Colonel, it's like you have a death wish or something."

Rodney didn't know exactly what it was he was trying to say, to get across. He did, however, know exactly where it was coming from. They'd already had their quota of close calls with that death march taking up the majority. Sheppard wasn't even recovered from that, and here he was ready to fling himself head first into potential death. This wasn't supposed to be happening. John was supposed to be sprawled out unconscious on a bed, or rolling his eyes during another of Carson's check ups. He was supposed to be resting! He was _not_ supposed to be taking off into the wild blue yonder to go annoy the big bad pirates.

He was not supposed to be making Rodney go all nauseas with concern.

And yet Rodney already knew that John was going to do this, because John was right – they didn't have time and they couldn't risk more people. There was a chance the pirate's little canons didn't work, which meant Sheppard would be safer in an F-302 than any marine trying to lay cover fire on the ground. If the canons did work, Sheppard needed only his wits rather than his body to dodge the return fire. When it came to flying, if Sheppard had wings, he'd never touch the ground.

All that didn't matter since Rodney's fear wouldn't let it. He steeled himself for the backlash that he knew was coming. Emotions played like a kaleidescope on John's face – shock, anger, insult, and to Rodney's surprise, hurt and fear.

"I don't have a death wish," John said thickly. "I'm just doing what needs to be done. I'm doing my damn job."

Those few words packed a punch that Rodney's rant hadn't even skimmed. Rodney's fear remained present only to be kicked down a peg by an influx of guilt. Rodney tended toward accusations while venting. When John got hurt, blame went to the ones who hurt him, and Sheppard himself. John always made the easier target when Rodney needed someone to blame, because he was right there within earshot for Rodney to rage against. Sometimes Sheppard took it, sometimes he didn't. Sometimes Rodney apologized later, and sometimes he stuck it out, holding himself in the right.

He'd never truly realized, until that exact moment, how ungrateful it sounded. 'You idiot, how dare you take that bullet meant for me. Next time, let me die so I don't have to watch you almost die.' Yeah, something along those lines was what it all came down to. It was a complete oxymoron in that it was both self-sacrificing and selfish. This was why Rodney didn't like emotions in general; too damn complicated, sometimes to a rather disturbing degree.

Rodney cleared his throat and looked anywhere but at Sheppard. "Sorry," he mumbled. "It's just... You shouldn't _have_ to do this I guess is really... What I'm trying to say."

"McKay," John said softly. Rodney looked up. John's features were lax. The anger was gone, along with the shock and the hurt. The fear lingered like a wallflower standing in a shadowy corner. Sheppard wasn't trying to hide it, just keeping a tighter hold on it. Rodney had seen that same kind of fear mixed with resolve so many times he'd forgotten that what he was seeing did indeed involve fear. Half the time, he took what was really extreme self control as fearlessness.

"It's cool," John finished, and grinned nervously. "My heart isn't exactly pounding because I'm looking forward to this. Let's just go, get it over with. The sooner the better. Right now I just want my people back. But I also want to live to see them come back. Crap, Rodney, I already almost side-swiped death. I sure as hell don't want to do it again."

Rodney nodded, and finally pushed the wheelchair within Sheppard's reach. He locked it, and watched tersely as John transferred himself from the bed to the chair. He then unlocked and wheeled it around to head out. Sherbet leaped from the bed and bounded on ahead of them.

"Where the bloody-hell are you takin' the Colonel, Rodney?"

Rodney peered over his shoulder at Carson standing with arms folded and scowling.

"To do his job," Rodney replied, and picked up speed making it out the door before Carson could protest.

SGA

They made a quick detour to John's room in order to grab his jacket since he was going to be airborne longer, then rushed straight to the hanger bay. John's little nap had actually done wonders for his body. He was no longer being weighed down by fatigue and aches, and his feet had numbed enough for him to get up out of the chair without assistance. John was starting to suspect a certain Scottish doctor brandishing a needle full of certain pain meds had contributed to his current pain tolerance.

"What if Ronon didn't get the message?" Rodney babbled. John began the ascent up the metal ladder, and Rodney followed to ensure John didn't do any sudden backward tumbles. "Or what if they caught him with that stunner device? They're gonna know something's up."

John slipped into the cockpit one leg at a time. "Then it's a good thing I think ahead. That fire's not going to let them waste time trekking back and forth just to yell at us. They're still going to start escorting people over. And a distraction is still a distraction. Me flying over should be enough to throw any guards off guard giving someone the chance to grab a weapon or two. But trust, me, Rodney, this is Ronon we're talking about. He got your message."

John settled into the seat and tugged the helmet on, tightening the strap under his jaw. If it had been anyone else being relied on to start a jail break, then John would have been worried. The thing about Ronon was that he was a soldier pretty much twenty-four seven, and a practical super soldier when crap hit the fan. He would know that John and Rodney, even just Rodney in the least, would cook up a plan to get them out of all this. He would know they would use every last resource available down to pocket lint and the inane babbling of a high-strung physicist. So he would know to be ready for it.

John checked his watch. "This isn't the time to start rethinking things, Rodney." Not that he would have minded it if Rodney happened to come up with something better. John was always open to suggestions – if suggestions led somewhere fast. They didn't have time to waste on 'possible' alternatives.

John still had a half hour to kill, so killed it checking systems over and over. Rodney remained hovering on the ladder, watching what could be the equivalent of John fidgeting. The nervous staring was making John tense. Any more unease and John's already knotted gut was going to implode.

"Rodney," he said. "Why don't you go muster the reinforcements to head on outside and get ready to lay cover fire."

"I thought you didn't want to send any more people into harm's way?"

"It's not sending more people into harm's way. I don't want you to hustle them off to the pirates, I just want them where they can pick off any strays trying to pick our people off as they run. Just have them waiting outside the ship. And if you could add the bonus of getting the transporters up and running, that would be even better."

Rodney nodded jerkily. "Yeah, right, good idea. I'll do that."

They both fell silent. Rodney continued to both nod and watch John go through a system's check for a third time. John paused and sat back, waiting. Rodney had stopped nodding but continued to watch.

"Rodney," John said.

"Huh?" Rodney's forehead creased, then smoothed. "Oh, you mean now?"

"Now would be good."

Rodney gave John a sharp nod. "Right." He clamored down the ladder, taking the wheelchair with him as he hurried from the bay. John sealed the cockpit, then just sat there, going through a few simple breathing exercises to settle his coiling stomach. There was always a little trepidation for the sake of the self when it came to going into dangerous situations, but most of John's trepidation was for everyone else. There was a chance a few people were going to get killed during the escape, but if John could prevent that, then he would with everything he had and then some.

If he lived through it, even better. John was just as much sick of the close calls as everyone else if not more so. Definitely more so, actually, since it was his body that ended up suffering the aftermath. He just wanted to get their people back, fly back to the Daedalus without a scratch, and crash into a nice warm bed for the duration of the trip.

He just wanted to rest.

John forced the need to the far, far corner of his mind. Just thinking about it had started another wave of lassitude that he couldn't afford to deal with right now. He checked his watch, and decided that now was as good a time as any to head out.

Chances were highly favorable that Ronon wasn't going to wait the whole hour.

SGA

The going was fast, rushed, with good reason. Another advantage for the picking. It made Ronon's guards too preoccupied to notice that he was literally hiding something up his sleeve. Ronon didn't underestimate them. He never underestimated the enemy, even the ones coming across as complete idiots. People, creatures, everything that breathed, walked, and thought, were unpredictable. Had the impending prairie fire not been a factor, Ronon was certain his little 'ace' (as Sheppard might put it) would have been confiscated by now.

No worries then either. It just meant that Ronon's purpose would end up being a little harder, and a lot more _hands on_.

The path through the maze of rocks slowed progress even with the pace increased almost to a trot. Ronon marked their closing proximity by the increasing haze in the sky, and the sharp, stinging scent of smoke. The rock maze eventually opened up back into the field, but the distant raging fire that Ronon assumed should have been seen by now was blocked by the pirate ship. They hurried up a ramp lowered from the ship's under belly, pungent air shifting to less pungent though still smoke-flavored. The interior was dim compared to the blinding radiance of the outside. The ship's lighting was soft, all cool colors of aquamarine and light green. Oxygen scrubbers hummed as they philtered out the smoke from outside turning it somewhat sweet and tolerable.

When that prairie fire finally hit, suffocation wasn't going to be the immediate problem. First the ship's skin would heat up, the heat would increase until systems began to short out – systems such as life support. The scrubbers would stop working, and smoke would leak in through the vents that gathered air from the outside when planet-side.

The same thing would happen to the Daedalus. There was a good chance the scrubbers would continue working, but the increase of heat could damage other vital systems. Then there was all that combustible energy source contained in both ships. Whether liquid fuel or something more solid, Rodney had explained once to Ronon why machines sometimes exploded when blasted in the right spot. power and fuel sources were itchy and unstable that way, some more than others.

"_Even A ZPM will go kablooie if handled wrong or over heated. No different from an overload," _he'd said. McKay liked to explain things, even if he sounded impatient about it.

Ronon turned his mind from ships exploding then melting down into a solid piece of metal, to the pirate ship's interior. It wasn't all that different from the Daedalus except for the lighting and the clutter. Lots and lots of clutter; pieces of tech butchered for parts or tossed aside having no use. Parts were piled along the walls, under consoles, and bits and pieces were scattered across the floor. These pirates were slobs.

The section of ship they entered was huge, with smatterings of consoles, a ladder in the center leading to an upper deck, two doors on the right and two on the left. The little party separated with the bald man and several of his underlings heading right. Ronon and three guards moved left, into the right-hand door that opened up into a wide corridor with grated flooring. They turned right again, through another door into another hall, only this one with more doors on either side.

Doors with small viewing windows. Through several of the windows, Ronon caught sight of people – people pacing, sitting, lying on the floor (hopefully because they were tired). People dressed in the uniforms of the Daedalus crew, or the clothes of marines.

Ronon allowed himself a smile. Then he let his knees go weak to crumple to the floor with a thud and ringing metal. He switched on the device as he had seen McKay do, and allowed it to slide out of his sleeve. The device whined, a pirate tugged at Ronon's arm yelling at him to get up, then the thread-thin beam of light shot up and the pulse shot out. It didn't go far, no more than four feet, which was all the distance that was needed with the guards trying to pack in on Ronon. The floor rang and vibrated when bodies crumpled all around him.

Ronon smirked and pushed himself to his feet, kicking the now depleted stunner disk to the side. He searched the men, grabbing rifles, an X-ray LSD, and – surprise, surprise to make Ronon beam even wider – his own gun, along with a few nine-mils, zats, and a P-90. All Ronon could say was thank goodness for greed. He turned to the nearest door, charged his weapon, and blasted the lock panel into a smoking hole. There was a beep and the door popped open. Ronon stuck his head inside to see people – marines and crew – scrambling off the floor.

"Time to go," he said.

Everyone was all smiles as they filed out, clapping Ronon on the shoulder then taking whatever weapon he handed to them. He shot out the panel to the other occupied cells, and the halls became packed with the bodies of crew and soldiers. Caldwell he found in the third cell, and Dr. Weir the fourth. He passed off the P-90 to Caldwell.

"How did you...?" Caldwell began to ask.

Ronon shook his head. "No time, this way." He led the masses from the cramped hall into the wider corridor, letting a marine next to him handle the X-ray LSD. When they came to the door that would lead into the larger chamber, the marine thrust out an arm, stopping Ronon.

"Whoa, hold up. We've got two bogies just outside this door."

Ronon nodded. "Thanks," then burst through the sliding door, firing off his stunner at the bewildered crew men. Red enveloped them and they dropped like boneless sacks onto the floor.

The way was clear. The ramp to the outside, however, was closed. Ronon pointed at that section of floor with his gun. "We need to get that open."

The Daedalus technicians were already on it, spreading throughout the room looking over consoles and along the walls. Someone must have hit the right something when there was a clunk, and the floor opened up as the ramp lowered down. Ronon turned to everyone following close behind.

"We can't go yet. But when I tell you to run, you run, no questions asked."

Caldwell squinted thoughtfully. "What are we waiting for?"

Ronon just smiled. "You'll see."

SGA

If it was shields everyone wanted, then it was shields everyone was going to get, and just as soon as Rodney figured out how the recharge device worked.. He had had it dragged to Hermiod's little section of the Daedalus, and now he and the Asgard were looking the device over, trying to determine what was plugged into where.

There was a panel at the top, and a coil of cable that could be pulled out to any needed length. The end of the coil didn't exactly look like it could be plugged into anything. If anything, it reminded Rodney of the pads on a heart monitor, albeit about a hand-span in size.

"Okay, this is weird," Rodney muttered.

"Perhaps you do not 'plug it in', as you suggested," said Hermiod. "Perhaps you merely place it over what needs to be recharged, such as the engines."

"Or the controls for the shields," Rodney said, and gnawed pensively on his lip. He looked up at Hermiod. "Which we could do from here, right? That way we can kill two birds with one stone and have shields and the transporters running."

"The transporters may take time. They sustained more damage than the shields. Whatever drained the power did not react well with the transporters, and the transporter systems have over loaded. Alvin Carlyle is attempting to repair them now.

Alvin. The poor man's parents had named him after a damn singing chipmunk.

Rodney unwound the cable, wrapping it around his arm to keep it unwound. "Nothing can be simple, can it?"

"It seems not," said Hermiod, and Rodney thought he caught a mild tone of irony and a little regret in the Asgard's voice.

As Rodney tugged and hauled the cable around to Hermiod's console, his gaze passed over the room for no reason in particular except to look at something else. Carlye was all over the place making the needed repairs to the transporters, two marines stood guard by the door, and Hermiod was preoccupied with studying the recharger.

Something seemed to be missing. Rodney stiffened.

"Okay, where the hell did Sherbet go?"

SGA

John gave the pirate ship wide berth, waiting for the signal from Ronon while avoiding any defensive fire. Smoke rose like a solid black wall from a floor glowing with hell fire uncomfortably close to the pirate ship. John gave that wide berth as well, but couldn't all together avoid it. The wind kept shifting sending black plumes and tendrils rolling across the cock-pit window. Just looking at it made John's lungs tighten in a cringe.

A small squeak of a yeep almost pulled John's gaze from the window and he rolled his eyes in sudden frustration.

"Sherbet! What the hell!"

He heard the tap of tiny claws clamoring over John's seat, then a slight weight on his shoulder. Sherbet's bright body dropped into his lap, trailing the leash after.

"Sherbet, buddy, as smart as you are one would think you'd develop some common sense by now. You are _really_ pushing it, pal." John unzipped his jacket enough to gather Sherbet one handed and stuff him inside. He zipped it up stopping just a few inches below his throat. As expected, Sherbet poked his head out resting it on his tiny paws. Sherbet could never resist a ride in someone's jacket, like a baby kangaroo. It had made John wonder if the species were marsupials.

Another swing around the pirate ship, and John saw a red flash like crimson lightening flying across the ground from under the ship. Three pirates came running out of the rock maze. One went down when another red pulse hit him square in the chest.

"All righty then," John said, making a sharp arc. "Hang on, Sherb, we're going in."

Sherbet yeeped. John hit the button on the controls and sent a volley into the ground several feet in front of the two remaining pirates. The pirates skidded to a stop and scrambled back. John turned, circling around the ship, and sent a few blasts across the concaved nose of the vessel.

John grinned. "Eat my photons, small heads."

The response was the pirate ship sending two crackling balls of blue energy at John's ship. John flipped the ship onto its side passing clean between the two shots. John let loose a lung-vibrating howl of exhilaration, and Sherbet yeeped in agitation.

SGA

Ronon shuffled back when two blasts tore up the ground outside the ship. When the dust settled, Ronon looked back and waved at the others gathered at the ramp.

"Move out!" he bellowed. He hopped from the ramp moving out of the way for everyone to clamor down and tear off across the grass. Marines spread out, taking point around those not armed, returning fire at the two remaining guards trying to shoot at them. Ronon saw one pirate go now in a gurgling death cry. The other lost his nerve and ran into the safety of the maze. Ronon ran ahead to lead the way through the maze, covering his mouth and nose with his sleeve. The haze in the air had thickened, and trickled into his lungs tickling the sensitive membrane. He coughed, and heard more coughing behind him.

"Keep going!" he called. "Keep moving!" It wasn't for the sake of motivation, but as a life-line for anyone who started veering in the wrong direction. It was getting harder to see, and harder to breathe. Glancing back, the wind cleared the smoke enough for Ronon to see white-blue blasts exchanged with plain white blasts. He heard the whine of the F-302, and saw it flash in and out of the smoke darkening the sky.

Then the rocks closed in around them, blocking his view of Sheppard's ship.

SGA

John spun, tilted, and veered, swinging around again and again until he was certain every last person had made it deep into the maze. John sent another blast over the ship. He didn't want to hit it and give the pirates even more incentive to take the Daedalus. John killed when he had to, and felt he didn't have to. If the pirates wanted to survive the fire, they could just move their ship. If their engines were too depleted, then John wasn't giving them a chance to run until the Daedalus crew was back in control.

John initiated a barrel roll to avoid another blast of energy. He righted the F-302, then steered the ship up and around in a back-flip that brought him straight in toward the bridge. He sent another blast over the bow and turned away.

Good enough, he supposed. Time to head back. John turned with the intent to return home. He saw a flash of blue-white out of the corner of his eye, then felt the F-302 shudder and shake. All systems went dead, and the F-302 whined down.

"Son of a bitch!" John snarled. He'd been sucker-punched. All power was gone, and he was swiftly losing altitude with the ground racing up to kiss him good-bye. John reached back, wrapping one hand around one eject handle and squeezed his casted arm behind the other. "Hang on, Sherb!" he cried, then pulled. Everything became a blur of smoky sky and Gs forcing his head down and trying to snap his neck. John gritted his teeth against buffeting winds and gravity working against him. He rose, and for a moment, less than a breath, he was weightless. Then his stomach tried to shoot up into his throat to cuddle with his heart when he began to plummet, the wind whistling past his ears. He heard, over the wind and the pounding blood in his ears, Sherbet shrieking and high-pitched yowl of terror. John wrapped his good around across his chest, pinning Sherbet to him.

His whole body jerked when the parachute finally deployed, and the plummet became a gentle decent – right in the clear space between the pirate ship and the prairie fire.

-------------------------------

TBC...

A/N: No way was I going to make this easy for him. Chapter 11 and the epilogue will be posted sometime tonight, maybe late. Nasty whumping ahead.


	11. Obstacles

A/N: I promised to post tonight, so I post tonight... Two chapters! Enjoy.

Ch. 11

At the distant rumble of explosions, Rodney tore off to the bridge. He expected to see pillars of flame rising like miniature nuclear explosions, but all he saw was a monolithic column of black cloud rising like some fantasy movie beast about to devour the sky. It made Rodney feel suddenly small, incredibly vulnerable, and wanting to slink off into some hole to hide. He gaped at its size, and felt his heart plummet like a stone into his stomach.

"Great crap!" he breathed. He was mesmerized probably for seconds, but those seconds felt like an eternity. A sudden onslaught of urgency snapped him from it, and he reached for the com he'd finally thought to grab from his room on the way to the bridge.

"Carlyle, this is Rodney. Please tell me you have the transporters up."

The com crackled. "The shields are ready to go but we're still working on the transporters. Nothing big, just replacing a few parts."

"Well step on it! That prairie fire isn't going to go all polite and wait around for us to finish." Rodney wanted to charge back and handle the repairs himself. It was a strong urge, but not strong enough. He wanted more to wait and see if someone, anyone, made it out of that rock maze and smoke alive. He started pacing as he waited, never taking his eyes from the view screen. He didn't dare look at his watch and acknowledge time in anyway. It dragged like nails digging into the skin until Rodney started nibbling a cuticle to siphon some of his agitation.

So he didn't know, and didn't care, how much time had passed when the first scatterings of people came charging out of the rock-maze toward the Daedalus. They flowed toward the ship, like water flowing from a breached dam. Rodney's body went stick rigid and he craned his neck trying to discern faces. He would have verbally smacked down anyone else for doing the same; everyone was too far away and might as well be colorful ants.

Rodney darted from the bridge to the nearest emergency exit. They would need one open since the transporters didn't work. It would be slow, but at least they would be able to see each face before entering the Daedalus one at a time, seeing who belonged and who didn't. Rodney's hands shook getting the door open, then clamoring down the ladder. He dropped to the ground and headed at a fast walk toward the approaching horde. He jumped a little when a marine moved ahead on the right. Rodney hadn't even realized anyone had followed.

The masses closed the distance enough for Rodney to see faces – Ronon's Elizabeth's, Caldwell's. Rodney almost crumpled to the ground in relief.

"It's about damn time!" he crowed in a cracked voice.

Ronon broke into an even faster run to meet up with McKay. "Wasn't an easy go," he said. "Could hardly see."

Rodney nodded, then scowled. "Whatever, we need to get everyone on board, now. We have the shields ready..." he looked up at the sky that was turning gray as though a storm were inching its way in. "Where's Sheppard? He should have been back by now."

About then, Rodney realized how perfectly quiet it was. No more thunderous explosions, and no distant mosquito whine of an F-302.

Rodney tapped his com. "Carlyle, we need that transporter now!"

SGA

When his chair hit the ground, John tugged and tore at the harness, squirming and yanking his arms and body free. The struggle made his ribs throb mercilessly. He grimaced, grunting from the pain until he finally managed to slip free. John lurched to his feet and stumbled limping away from the chair in the general direction he'd last seen the pirate ship. It was mostly guesswork. He couldn't see a damn thing through all the smoke that poured into his lungs, searing them. He coughed a cough that made his ribs cramp and his breath catch. John flapped his arm until the sleeve of his jacket fell over his hand, and used that end of the sleeve to cover his mouth and nose. He pushed Sherbet's head down into his jacket with the tips of his casted hand.

The going sucked more than words could describe. Between his tired body, pained feet, and heart laboring out of exertion and fear, he kept pulling in deeper breaths that brought smoke with it. His eyes watered, blurring his vision, deepening the fog around his world.

He didn't see one of the ships landing legs until his shoulder clipped it. The impact hurt like hell but that didn't stop him from wanting to hug the thing. With a triumphant, hysterical chuckle, he pushed forward beneath the ship's belly, past the lowered ramp, and beyond toward the rock maze. No obstacles except the smoke and the walls of jagged, red-brown rocks rising up around him as he entered the maze. The smoke wasn't quite so bad, in that he could see a few more feet ahead, which was better than nothing.

Problem was, he'd already taken in enough smoke to create a few obstacles of a different color. It was hard to breathe, making it hard to focus. He stumbled into the rocks surrounding him like walls, and leaned up against them for support.

"Ah crap!" he coughed. He wasn't quite sure the direction to go, and although this rock maze wasn't an actual maze, the wrong turn would make finding the exit a painfully slower process.

During the transition from one rock wall to the next, John's foot snagged on a tangled clump of grass sending him flying face-first toward the dirt. He twisted enough not to land on Sherbet, which meant landing on his side. Pain shot through his flank and he gnashed his teeth trying not to cry out. Sherbet bounded out of his jacket, two feet away, and sat back yeeping at him.

John rolled onto his hands and knees. "Coming buddy," he gasped. "Just – just give me a minute."

The air was fresher toward the ground – that was the rule, and actually not a misconception. John began crawling, just for a little while in order to catch his breath and decrease the coughing. Sherbet bounded back and forth, yeeping, as though trying to encourage John to pick up the pace.

"I'm not naturally four-legged, pal," John rasped. "This is as fast as..." He was interrupted by a sudden, vicious kick straight to his already cracked ribs that sent him slamming into the ground. John cried out, only to have that interrupted by a kick to the chest that shoved the breath right out of him.

"Well, well, little beast. Fancy running into you here." Another kick drilled straight into his stomach. "It does pay to linger, doesn't it?"

It took John way longer than it should have to get the air sucked back into his lungs. Even when he managed it, it took just as long to get through bouts of harsh coughing before he could speak.

"What the hell..." he gasped. "Are you... doing... here?"

"I _was_ attempting to track down your friends, but it seems they got ahead of me. Suppose you'll just have to do." Another kick to the stomach, and just when John had managed to get his breath back. Baldy crouched, grabbing John by the sleeve at his shoulder, hauling him to his feet then slamming him into the rough rock face. John was going to die of suffocation long before Baldy had finished beating the crap out of him.

"You..." John coughed painfully, "stuck around... Just to hunt... us down? Not even gonna try..." he coughed again, "to get away? What the hell is wrong... with you?"

"Oh I'm not sticking around, little beast. I plan on leaving, and you're coming with us. If I can't have your ship I can at least have the satisfaction of breaking your skinny neck."

"So your engines do work?"

Baldy pulled John away from the rock wall. "Enough to get us off the ground and to some place less deadly. Don't think this is over, little beast. We can still fire from the ground. Your ship tries to take off, we'll be ready."

"Then why are you wasting time shoving me around? That fires almost on us!"

Baldy didn't answer. He shoved John forward, which only did to send him sprawling flat on his face again. John barely got to lift his head when Baldy grabbed him by both the shoulders of his jacket and pulled up. John unzipped his jacket during the transition, enabling himself to slip out and stumbled out of Baldy's reach. Whirling around and managing not to fall again, he pointed a stiff, shaking finger at the pirate.

"Look pal. Why don't you stick your pride where the sun don't shine and leave me alone so you can save your own ass! You're wasting freakin' time!"

Again, baldy didn't answer, didn't remark. He just strode forward straight at John, forcing John to stagger backward to stay out of reach. McKay was right. John had pissed this guy off something fierce, enough to risk himself just for a little drawn out vendetta. People tended to get stupid when they panicked, but dropped even more I.Q. points when they gave into the need for revenge.

Or baldy was hoping to use John as a bargaining chip. Either way, both goals were idiotic. Caldwell wasn't going to give up his ship and sacrifice hundreds for one man.

Desperate, angry, vengeful – John was surprised baldy wasn't drooling and gibbering in baby-talk.

John's heel hit a dip in the ground, destroying his balance to have him slamming into the ground onto his back. Baldy took the advantage and moved in on John. John, however, was knocked breathless, not senseless, and kicked out slamming his foot exactly where he'd told baldy to shove his pride. Baldy gasped and groaned, while John cried out in pain.

"Son of a... Crap!" John shoved the pain to the back of his mind, and rolled onto all fours to scramble back onto his feet and away from the bald man. He stumbled, limped, and lurched through the thickening smoke that hid the walls and stacks of rock that he barely avoided colliding with.

"You won't be getting too far in this mess, little beast!" Baldy called. "I'll find you, and make you suffer until our very last breath!"

John gritted his teeth at suddenly being thrust into the middle of some cliché horror movie. He actually anticipated the snarling purr of a chainsaw at any moment. Or perhaps baldy preferred machetes.

"I can hear you, little beast. Not quite steady on your feet. Doesn't help your cause much."

"And talking constantly doesn't help yours!" John snapped, then coughed, which increased his disadvantage. He couldn't see squat through the smoke and stinging tears in his eyes. He clipped and bounced off of rock-faces that loomed out of the shadows like some magician's trick. Hide the obstacles with a veil then yank that veil away when John was just a foot away. His arms began to throb, but not as bad as his feet that felt like they were developing hair-line cracks.

A sharp, solid weight slammed into him between his shoulder blades, sending him back to the ground on his chest. He tried to get up, only to have something else hard, solid, and uneven smash into his back right on the same spot. John glanced back to see a boot, a leg, and baldy connected to it. Even through the haze of smoke, John was still able to catch the white of teeth from the man's smile. Baldy increased the weight on his foot that dug and pushed into Sheppard's back, bending his spine in the wrong direction, and flattening his ribs.

"I intend to make this slow for you, little beast," baldy rasped.

John had several pithy replies for that, just not the lung capacity to say anything. His heart was beating at the speed only pure, irrational terror could produce. It thrashed around against its prison of bone slowly closing in on it. John was sure it would explode long before he suffocated. The question was, would he burn? Or would baldy use his body to bargain with, maybe to get the Daedalus, maybe just to get his recharger back. Either way, the man didn't care weather what he bargained with lived or breathed.

John suspected he wasn't even going to be bartered anytime soon. This was all one hundred percent vindication.

It sucked to be useless.

John heard echoing from a far away place a high-pitched growl. He saw something bright within the dark density of the smoke come flying at baldy's knee and latch on. Baldy bellowed out a throaty cry of pain, lifting his boot away, freeing John's ribcage to expand pulling in the fresher air that lingered near the ground. John blinked away tears and looked back to see baldy hopping around trying to swat at something skittering all over his leg like a turbo-charged snake. He finally got in a lucky swipe sending the blazing ribbon of fur flying into the smoke with a pained squeak.

"Sherbet!" John cried. He tried to scramble in the direction Sherbet had been tossed, but baldy was on him, pulling him to his feet by the collar of his sweater. The collar cinched tightening around John's neck. In both panic and desperation he slammed his elbow back right into baldy's face. Baldy released John to stagger back, so John spun around, swinging his cast right up against baldy's head. Baldy's head rebounded off the cast, then again off a wall of rock. Instead of going down, he swayed and lurched like a drunkard straight at John. Without thinking, without realizing, the small cool weight that had been forever bumping John's wrist since he escaped from the storage closet slid into his hands. Baldy reached for him, snarling. John thrust his arm forward with everything he had left, burying the wire shiv deep into baldy's chest. Baldy jolted to a halt, sucking in a wheezing gasp. He looked down in astonishment at the piece of cable sticking out of his chest. He looked at John in the same manner, then back at the shiv. He tightened a meaty fist around it, trying to pull it out, but couldn't thanks to all the blood. Baldy turned and began to stagger away into the smoke, fading like a spirit.

John didn't waste time seeing if he would return. He turned in the opposite direction and pushed forward, pulling the sleeve of his sweater over his hand and covering his mouth with it.

"Sherbet!" he called, and coughed, just once. The pain in his ribs was too excruciating. He gasped, uttering a broken cry, and dropped to his knees. "Sherb..." he didn't have enough clean air in his lungs to finish. The world spun and tilted. John looked up to where the sky was supposed to be, at the light trying to push its way through the roiling mist of soot. Everything was gray, black, and highlights of sickly amber turning everything dusk.

Shapes moved through the smoke-like dust. Dark bodies stained by that dust, nothing more than humans shapes, marching and marching and marching. John fell to his hands to crawl after, ducking his head away from the dust that tasted bitter like ashes, old sweat, and blood. If you couldn't walk, you crawled. So John crawled, hand, knee, hand, knee, scraping up clouds of dust of his own. The destination didn't matter, just moving.

A bright body, too small to be human, materialized from the veil of dust and smoke, and yeeped. John lifted his heavy head and smiled.

"H-hey Sherb," then coughed. It hurt to breathe, and hurt even more to talk. Sherbet yeeped, then bounded forward to lick at John's filthy hand. He bounded away, then back, then away, yeeping to urge John on. John grabbed the trailing strap of the leash and held on.

"Lead the way, buddy."

Sherbet yeeped, and trotted forward. John crawled as quickly as his hurting body would let him, letting the sudden tautness of the leash guide him when he almost veered. The bodies in the dust closed in around him. He could feel them brushing past him. Faces looked at him, leering, coveting. They were all the same, masked in filth, featureless, not really people, just bodies - shells. He felt their hands brush his back, his legs. They wanted his clothes. Their's weren't enough. Never were, never will be. John shivered and cringed away from them.

"No," he moaned, and crawled faster, scraping his knees and his palms over rough dirt and razor sharp grass. He felt like he was trying to breathe a mixture of oxygen and cotton that was stuffing into his lungs, and even on his hands and knees he swayed. But he kept moving. They didn't come back for you when you stopped, and John was useless now. They wouldn't care if he dropped. They wouldn't come back for him. The moment he dropped, they would take his clothes, and he would be left dieing naked, buried by the dust.

Or burned. Burned while he was still alive. It felt so hot.

The leash tugged, and Sherbet yeeped continuously, frantically. He sounded afraid.

"Sherbet!"

Sherbet whined. John let go of the leash. If he had to die, he should be the only one. Sherbet didn't deserve it.

What was Sherbet even doing here?

"Sheppard!"

John kept crawling, just for the sake of it. He never could go down without a fight.

Then hands were on him, all over him, pulling at him, his clothes, his arm, his shoulders. Sheppard let out a hoarse shout of panic and bucked away.

"No, I'm not dead yet! I'm not dead...!"

"Of course you're not dead! Sheppard, calm down! It's us, me and Ronon."

Hands pulled on him, dragging him away. He fought them. Even when the voices penetrated with their familiarity he still fought them.

"Nooooo!"

Thick arms wrapped around his chest, pinning his arms to his sides, so he kicked out instead. Hands grabbed him by the face, forcing him to look right up into the blue eyes and soot-stained and terrified visage of McKay.

"Sheppard," McKay gasped, coughing hard afterwards. "Sheppard, it's us. It's all right, you'll be all right, just calm down."

John gaped. He inhaled with the intent to say something when the breath caught in his overstuffed lungs. His body jolted and jerked in a fit of coughing that was agony when his ribs seized up on him, going solid to neither expand nor contract. It was official – he couldn't breathe. He tried, but it was as though a wall had formed within his trachea. John arched his back to dislodge it, and managed something that allowed him a choking whimper.

"McKay!" Ronon snarled. "He can't breathe."

John wheezed, just a tiny stream of breath, but it wasn't enough. Black motes and blinding lights sparked in his eyes. His heart was thrashing again, and this time he knew it was going to explode, any minute now.

"We won't make it back in time. Carlyle! tell me you've got the transporters working. Please!"

John was maneuvered for a hand to start pounding on his bruised back. "Come on, Sheppard, breathe!"

"His lips are turning blue!"

White light surrounded John, sucking him into a cold void, then spitting him out on the other side. More hands grabbed him, and he felt himself suddenly airborne. He landed on a soft surface. Something was placed over his face, something that brushed his mouth and nose with cool, sweet air. And it still wasn't enough. He coughed, feeling something warm slid down the corner of his mouth. The mask was removed, and the warm liquid continued on down his jaw, then his throat.

"Oh my gosh! Please tell me that's because he coughed too much and not because a lung's punctured."

Shapes danced over John, human shapes in clean clothes, not one with the dust, not shadows. A voice with an accent yelled for someone to prep a chest tube and hands finally removed the clothing he fought so hard to keep, leaving him cold.

"Hang on, son," said Carson.

John heard a subdued little yeep, then the black motes outnumbered the flashing lights, and joined to drop him into darkness.

SGA

"Dr. McKay, would you please leave that mask on."

Rodney was a robot. The obedient seen and not heard robot, placing the oxygen mask back to his face. He heard the same rather emotionless voice command him to take deep breaths, so he did, his lungs catching on a cough. He irritably swiped at the tears produced by the cough. He wanted to see every damn moment of what was happening, because he'd never been able to before. He couldn't say why, and didn't care what difference it would make, just that he preferred it to waiting without the watching.

He was probably wrong. Watching was probably worse. He Just – didn't – care.

Carson and his team were all over Sheppard cutting up his black sweater too dark to show soot stains. They tossed it aside in a heap on the floor, and the pressure bandages along with it, then surged even tighter obscuring Sheppard's pale, bruised, filthy body. The obscuring part didn't come quite in time to hide them inserting a tube between two of Sheppard's ribs – rather fragile looking ribs. They looked like brittle little sticks trying to poke through Sheppard's skin. Rodney found it morbidly fascinating in that he wanted to look away, knew he should, but couldn't quite get his eyes to follow any commands. He'd always thought bones to be thicker, although probably not the ribs.

Medical jargon was tossed around, enough for Rodney to translate into 'punctured and collapsed lung' and 'blood filling the cavity around one lung.' He saw blood fill the tube, and that's when he finally looked away, down at Sherbet curled in his lap, breathing shallow. Rodney took the oxygen mask from his face and placed it over Sherbet's little head.

"Dr. McKay!" the nurse snapped, rushing over from making sure Ronon kept his mask on to take Rodney's mask.

Rodney snapped his head up pouring every ounce of terror and anger that was boiling him up inside into his gaze. "In a minute!"

The nurse flinched to a halt and worked her mouth soundlessly. Rodney finally pulled the mask from Sherbet when his own lungs began to tighten. He continued this back and forth, concentrating on it to the point that everything around him stretched into distant sounds and actions.

The next time Rodney brought the mask to his face, another mask appeared covering Sherbet's head. Rodney looked up into the nervous but apologetic face of the nurse. She smiled waveringly at him, then placed her hand on his shoulder. "You should lie back," she said, applying pressure to his shoulder. "It'll help."

Rodney nodded heavily, and moved carefully so as not to jostle Sherbet too much. He eased his aching back into the pillows of the upraised head of the bed. Then he sighed releasing all agitation and adrenaline from his sore body in that single breath. He closed his eyes for a moment during this lull between controlled frantic and the possibility of someone shouting for a defibrillator. The call never came.

What had Rodney's eyes snapping open was the sudden decrease in noise. His gaze went straight to Sheppard's bed where the Daedalus physician and two nurses lingered cleaning up the mess and making sure Sheppard was settled. He had a blanket pulled up stopping just below the drainage tube, and an intubation tube shoved down his throat.

Rodney had been through this song and dance before. It was to help John breathe while his lungs recovered. Still didn't mean Rodney had to like it. He scowled at the apparatus hanging out of the side of Sheppard's mouth as though it were the cause of their current ills. Rodney knew that it wasn't, he just liked to have something to vent on, and he refused – this time around – to let John be the scapegoat for his fury.

A hand on Rodney's shoulder made him start and whip his head around to face Carson. Carson snatched his hand back and winced.

"Sorry, lad. Didn't mean to startle you."

Rodney relaxed and moved his mask aside so he could talk. "It's inevitable, Carson. I'm going to be jumpy for a while. How's Sheppard? What happened to him? Was it smoke or a broken rib?"

Carson placed his hand on Rodney's shoulder, applying pressure until Rodney got the hint to lean forward. Carson lifted both Rodney's jacket and shirt to place the stethoscope to his back. "Both, actually. Breathe in."

Rodney sucked in a breath, then coughed it back out. Beckett moved the membrane to the other side of Rodney's back and told him to breathe again.

"I'd rather not," Rodney rasped, but did anyways. His lungs tickled, but he managed not to cough this time.

"Hm," Carson said. "I think it best if you'd stay overnight so I can monitor your O2 stats. And continuing the answer to your question; a broken rib punctured his lung, causing it to collapse. The other lung was on the verge of collapse due to the smoke. But we got him in time and both lungs are already reinflated. There wasn't too much blood. The lad's bloody lucky the transporters were brought back online. It would have been pulling it too bloody close if you'd brought him back on foot. He shouldn't be needing the tubes for long, but he'll probably be out of it for the rest of the journey."

Rodney nodded wearily. Now that Carson had given him the good news, all he wanted was for his voodoo highness to go practice his art elsewhere. Rodney wanted to sleep.

Rodney flopped his hand onto his lap and the lump of fur curled there. He looked down at Sherbet sprawled on his lap with his head engulfed in the oxygen mask. Sherbet's flanks were rapid as they rose and fell.

Carson sighed and shook his head. "I'm not a bloody vet," he said, placing the stethoscope to Sherbet's chest, then sides.

"He's got lungs and a heart," Rodney said. "What's so different about that?"

"They're smaller, so I'm not quite sure what abnormalities I should be listening for. But so far things sound good. No crackles or the like. Sherbet was closest to the ground so any smoke intake was probably minimal. I think the little bugger's just tired."

"Hey," Rodney admonished. "That little 'bugger' is why Sheppard's alive. We never would have found John if Sherbet hadn't been calling out. And from the look of things when we found the Colonel, Sherbet had been doing a pretty darn good Lassie impression leading John out of that rock maze."

Carson's eyebrows shot to his hairline. "Did he now?" He looked down at Sherbet, and scratched him between his large ears. "I always thought him a loyal wee bairn but not quite to that extent. He is a smart one."

A nurse approached and handed off a set of scrubs to Carson. Carson then held them out for Rodney to take. "I had a hunch you'd be wanting out of smoked clothing."

Rodney sat up straighter, taking the scrubs. "Yes. It keeps sparking these cravings for ham."

Carson chuckled softly, patting Rodney on the shoulder before shifting over to Ronon's bed. The Satedan was sprawled out on the bed, and the mask did nothing to stifle the Mack truck snoring.

Rodney gathered Sherbet into one arm as he shuffled out of bed to change in the nearest bathroom. He paused when passing John's bed, grimacing at the mechanical rise and fall of his chest that was too blasted unnatural for comfort. But, hey, at least he was breathing. At least they were all breathing, which might not have been the case had things gone a different way.

Had John not done his job.

Rodney moved closer to John's bed, moving the man's uncasted arm enough to set Sherbet against John's flank. He then lightly patted John's arm.

"Would have been better if you came back in one piece," Rodney said. But he, like everyone else, would settle for John coming back alive, again and again and again. They couldn't exactly afford to be picky.

SGA

There wasn't much to see on the view screen thanks to the solid wall of smoke rolling over it, except when a strong enough gust of wind scattered it. Through the holes in the smoke Elizabeth could see the bright orange flicker of flames licking up the prairie grass leaving a trail of smoldering ash and charred plant life. She also saw, in the distance to the left, birds bursting from the ground where the fires hadn't touched yet.

"Shields are holding sir," said one of the deckhands. "We have sublight, and hyperdrive's almost back on line."

Caldwell moved from behind his chair to the front to seat. "Good, take us up, then."

The only sign that they were moving was the low hum of the engines powering up, then the smoke diminishing as the Daedalus pulled away. A different kind of flame swept over the view screen as the Daedalus climbed up out of the atmosphere into the star-pricked blackness of space. Elizabeth had never been comfortable with space travel unless it was through a gate. All that empty, vacuum _openess_ – cold and endless – made her feel no bigger than a grain of sand and vulnerable as too thin glass. All that was in the past now. She smiled and sighed in body-melting relief to see all that endless dark.

She lingered until the announcement came that the hyperdrives were ready, and Caldwell gave the order for the drives to be engaged. Once Elizabeth saw the cloudy tunnel of hyperspace, she finally left the bridge to head to the infirmary and check on her people.

It had been so damn close she was still shuddering over it. The remaining pirates escaping the fire were now locked in the brig to be dealt with later. They'd come running, begging asylum, and didn't even object to being zatted and practically stripped searched. Something the Geneva Convention would probably frown about, but there was nothing truly wrong with a little extra precaution. Chances were good they would probably be incarcerated on some scarcely populated Milky Way world. No way were these thugs stepping one foot on Earth.

Elizabeth slowed when she entered the infirmary. She looked between John and Rodney – Rodney decked out in scrubs and snoring through the oxygen mask on his face. Ronon in the next bed out-snoring him. John wasn't allowed to snore with a tube doing the breathing for him. Carson had assured – during the debriefing before the Daedalus was ready to take off – that the tube was just a precaution to make breathing less of a hassle, and would probably not be in for long.

It still made her stomach recoil. John was supposed to have sit this one out, which had been ridiculous from the start with them being seriously out-maneuvered and out-manned. Rodney had explained how John had ended up in the infirmary with a chest tube sticking out of him. He'd been flying an F-302. One would think him the safest out of all of them (barring those remaining at the Daedalus) in an F-302. The sky was pretty much John's territory. But then even birds don't fly forever. The only reason Elizabeth could see for John getting shot down was thanks to his already damaged body catching up to him with pain and exhaustion.

It made her physically sick. She had to keep reminding herself that John would be fine, that things weren't as bad as they looked, and soon they would be arriving at Earth and beamed into the safety of the SGC. They would be on vacation – officially this time, so long as no other pirates decided to make a grab for the Daedalus.

Satisfied, at least, to see her people on the mend, she turned and headed from the infirmary to her quarters. There, she curled up on her bed, and allowed herself the luxury of pretending everything that had happened nothing more than a bad dream.

-----------------------------

TBC...

A/N: Only the epilogue to go.


	12. Epilogue: Vacation, for real this time

Ch. 12

John opened his eyes, just a fraction, to get his barings. It wasn't the first time he'd woken, just the first time he'd woken feeling the most lucid he'd ever been. But he'd gladly shove lucidity aside to drift back into oblivion. It was warm, comfortable, timeless, and made it easier to avoid the arduous yet dull process of healing in an infirmary bed. Yet to open his eyes, even a slit – to return to consciousness period – was always followed by a demand that he make more of an effort to return to full lucidity, and he wasn't ready for that yet.

He smiled slightly when no demands for him to open his eyes wider were forth coming. The world was a blur of gray-walls and bed-shapes, but no people shapes in white coats. The infirmary was empty. It also wasn't the Daedalus infirmary. John was a cautious man – not paranoid, cautious – so when the scenery changed, no matter how foggy the world or his brain, he knew it right down to the subtle nuances. Actually, it was usually the subtle nuances that gave it away, such as the coloring of the walls, the position of the beds, plus sounds and smells – mostly smells since all infirmaries sounded the same. He couldn't describe the differences in scents, they were just there.

"It's about damn time."

John turned his head. He'd been wrong, the infirmary wasn't empty, he'd just been too lazy to look around and fully realize it. Rodney was in the other bed – a made bed, sitting on top of the covers, dressed in a dark blue sweater with a red Maple leaf over the heart, Khaki pants, and tennis shoes. He was typing on a laptop that he seemed thoroughly engrossed in, and knowing Rodney and his multi-tasking abilities, he probably was.

John opened his mouth to start asking questions, but could only produce a dry croak that tickled his throat and elicited dry coughs. Rodney was on it, smoothly transferring the laptop to the side so he could slide from the bed, grabbing a cup from the side table and plunking a straw into it. He raised the head of John's bed enough to get the straw within reach of his mouth so he didn't have to sit up. John took the straw, and a few cautious sips. He knew the routine – not too much or he'd just puke it up. He stopped drinking before Rodney had to snatch the cup away. Rodney set the cup aside, then stuffed his hands into the pockets of his pants and rocked back and forth from heel to toe.

"Where are we?" John finally asked.

"SGC."

John nodded. "Thought so." He let his eyes roam over the infirmary, then himself and the bed. His heart thudded when he realized the bed was absent one little ball of colorful fluff. "Where's...?"

Rodney stepped to the side. John looked over at the neighboring bed to see Sherbet curled up beside Rodney's laptop.

"Carson was getting a little frustrated, and the nurses a little freaked. He though it would be best if Sherbet stayed out of the infirmary for a while. I tried to tell Carson that you'd probably suspect the worst, but he wouldn't listen..."

John relaxed with a contented sigh. "Suspect the worst, maybe, but not freak out. Was I out for the whole trip?"

"Pretty much except for a few waking moments Carson said you probably wouldn't remember."

John gingerly stretched, elongating his spine and testing the expansion threshold of his ribs with a slow inhale. His vertebra popped, and his ribs pulled a little, but other than that and sleep-stiff muscles he felt pretty good. "I remember them, just not the details."

"Well, you probably would have been a little more awake if Carson hadn't felt the need to keep you mostly sedated the whole time."

John stopped stretching to shoot Rodney an appalled look. "What?"

Rodney held up his hands. "Hey, take it up with Mr. Hypnos. The man thought it would be a good idea if you stayed under for the rest of the trip. Something about nightmares and making sure you avoided them so your body could get the rest it needed."

Rodney's explanation made sense, but it still didn't lessen the horror. "Rodney, considering how long it takes the Daedalus to reach earth... That's a long freakin' time to be under just to avoid a bunch of nightmares."

Rodney remained non-plussed. "Yeah, well, it wasn't as though you were bed ridden the _entire _time. Carson did manage to get you out of bed and walking around a little when he felt your feet were up to it. But I doubt you remember that. You were practically sleep walking. But, yes, I will agree that that was the longest nap I've seen anyone take who wasn't in a coma or intubated for long."

John looked away, sinking deeper into the bed. A black cloud of depression covered him like an overcast sky. Days spent in bed meant days of physical therapy just to get strength enough to walk. It meant that until he got that strength back, he'd probably be confined to a wheelchair. It meant the weight he'd gained back he probably lost.

It meant too much after having already gone through it once. It also meant that he'd be spending his Earth-side leave cooped up in some hospital or care center, maybe even the SGC infirmary. It meant that his vacation was completely shot to hell. He felt himself giving way to self-pity, and a full-blown sulk in the works.

"Guess you won't have to babysit me after all, Rodney," John said.

Rodney snorted. "Guess again, oh great but accident prone savior of the Daedalus. You've simply made my job of making sure your skinny rear is well taken care of a hell of a lot harder. Everyone agreed that it would be cruel locking you up in some hospital or something, so you'll be recuperating at my place after all, but with the added bonus of a physical therapist and nurse dropping by to make sure you don't croak. And don't think you're spending the entire time sprawled on my couch. I've checked the papers and know of a couple of local carnivals and fairs with wheelchair access going on, complete with ferris wheels."

The cloud of self-pity departed, and John felt like smiling. "I'm already looking forward to it."

"Good, because Ronon'll probably listen to you about carrying concealed knives into a family friendly place a big no-no."

"I'll get right on it," John said, shifting to get more comfortable. He was ready to slip back into that warm, floating feeling, when a realization struck. He looked over at Rodney, who had turned back to his own bed, grabbing the laptop before hopping back onto the mattress.

"Hey, Rodney," John said.

"Yes?" Rodney replied, delving back into multi-tasking.

John licked his suddenly dry lips. "How is everyone?"

"Good, safe, relieved. A few suffered a little smoke inhalation, but nothing bigger."

"Except for me."

"Except for you."

John rolled his head to stare daggers up at the ceiling. "Do I have a big bullseye painted on my back or something?"

"It was inevitable," Rodney said. "You pissed baldy off and he wanted retribution. I'm pretty sure he knew you were in that F-302 so shot it down with relish. Face it, Colonel, sometimes you do bring these things down on yourself. If it's not the ATA gene, it's that all bad guys can sniff out the hero complexes like a starving lion closing in on the wildebeest. That guy hated you from the start. If he was going to go down, he was taking you with him."

John shrugged a single shoulder. "I guess."

"No guesses about it, it's fact. You piss people off for all the right reasons, and they're going to make you pay. The rest of the time it's just bad luck."

"I thought you didn't believe in bad luck."

"I'm starting to come around."

John grinned. "Then the world must be a balanced place. With all the bad luck that seems to get dumped on us, you'd think we'd be dead by now."

Rodney stopped typing, and looked up suddenly, staring at the far wall. John winced internally and braced for the berating on how unfunny that comment had been, and there was nothing laughable about all their close calls. John waited for it. Rodney, however, continued to stare, his expression turning gradually pensive.

"I've realized something about you," he said after a time.

John swallowed. "What?"

Rodney looked at him. "I don't think it's so much luck that we're alive, but that you're too damn stubborn to die, or let anyone else die."

John arched an eyebrow. "I don't know whether or not to take it as a compliment."

"It's an observation. And... Kind of an apology. I accused you of having a death wish – on more than one occasion. And it's a bunch of crap. People with death wishes don't fight as hard as I've seen you fight to live. Usually, they're dead by now. Did you know that when you were brought back from that death march, Carson had given you a low survival percentage? He told us not to hold out too much that you would live. But it was still a higher percentage than what he would give most people. He said that knowing you, you'd fight to live, and you did. So it was unfair of me to accuse you... the way that I did. And I apologize for that. Not that I'm accusing you of being afraid to die, or anything," Rodney quickly added.

John gave him a lopsided grin. "I know. It's not like I'm looking forward to it either."

Rodney nodded. "Good to hear."

"And Rodney?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

"For what?"

"Letting me do what I needed to do, even though it ended in another close call."

"Oh," Rodney said. "You're welcome." Then he pointed at John. "But next time you decide to take on a pirate ship in one little F-302, I'm calling in Carson and making him sedate you."

John smirked, closing his eyes. "Next time I won't be in a cast, and I'm taking a whole squadron with me."

"Now that I can put up with."

SGA

Sherbet was the star of the SGC. Rodney threatened to get a restraining order to keep the biologists away. He actually caught one of them trying to pick the lock to his room after he'd stepped out for lunch. He'd chased the man off, only to discover Sherbet wasn't in the room, but had slipped out running amok through the SGC halls until he ended up in the infirmary by John's side. Dr. Lam finally relented to letting the Mir'ka stay since he didn't leave John's side unless someone took him, and Landry was getting annoyed.

As Rodney had suspected, and hoped, Sherbet hit it off big with Sam. She tried to keep a straight face and a clinical, exploratory attitude, until she melted into an almost motherly puddle of goo when Sherbet hopped onto her shoulders and rubbed against the back of her neck. Teal'c was a bit of a surprise when he picked Sherbet up, looked him over, and remarked, "He is a very pleasant animal to look at, and very soft." Okay, so it wasn't melting into a puddle that instigated talking to Sherbet in baby-talk, but it did incite a few smirks from the rest of SG-1. Daniel pretended indifference but couldn't stop trying to get Sherbet to chase his own tail. Mitchell was the most gung-ho about interacting with Sherbet than the rest. He kept Sherbet occupied while Sheppard was taken for his daily Physical therapy. They played catch up and down the SGC halls, sometimes with a ball, sometimes a miniature Frisbee, even a stick on one occasion. Mitchell even taught Sherbet to jump through a hoop, and some how Sherbet figured out how to use the elevators, though the concept of floors was totally beyond him. He would be found huddled in a corner, yowling piteously until someone brought him back. And yet he always managed to avoid the biologists.

About a week was spent at the SGC, long enough for Sheppard to work enough strength back into his legs to get around for short time. There would be no long walks through fairs and carnivals for him, but he wouldn't be resigned to having to depend on a wheelchair when going from the couch to the kitchen. Also during that week, Rodney made frequent stops at his place to clean up and get things ready. Carson drilled Rodney in what seemed a two-foot long list of instructions concerning how Sheppard needed to be cared for. Once Carson deemed those instructions thoroughly burned in Rodney's brain, he left to catch a flight to Scotland.

He immediately called the next day from his mother's house to go over the instructions one more time. Then again five hours later.

When the week was up, and John was more mobile, they were transported over to their new home away from home, and Sherbet was allowed to go with them. It hadn't been the battle Rodney had expected it to be. Sherbet had earned a lot of rights thanks to his part in saving the Daedalus and John. You don't lock heroes up in kennels that they'd just break out of anyways.

They were taken by limo to Rodney's place. The driver kept trying to guess what breed of dog Sherbet was until McKay finally snapped that it was a mutt. The man, unperturbed, then tried to guess the breeds that made up Sherbet. Ronon simply tuned the man out, and Sheppard was no help since he'd fallen asleep. The ride seemed to take forever.

When they did arrive, Rodney couldn't get out of the car fast enough. He would have bolted to his door, but needed to help Sheppard, who was groggy from sleep and slow because of it. For that reason, he had to endure the driver's continuing litany of dog breeds as he helped carry the luggage as Ronon handled the folded up wheelchair.

Rodney fumbled a bit with his keys before managing to fit the right one into the lock. John was leaning up against the wall by the door with arms folded and one hand holding tight to Sherbet's leash. He was still lethargic, and looked cold, even with his blue-windbreaker, a gray zip-up sweater, and a red sweater under that. For it being summer, the weather was actually very mild and a little on the cool side when the wind blew. It was still weather that allowed a T-shirt, which Rodney was wearing now, but John would probably be wearing a jacket for a while, even when it finally warmed up. He'd lost weight, again. Nothing dire but enough to be annoying. And one tended to be cold when too thin, waking up from a nap, and still being tired.

Rodney opened the door to his now clean apartment that no longer smelled of dust and mothballs. He'd scrubbed every inch of the place, changed the sheets on the bed, and even stalked the kitchen with enough food to hopefully outlast Ronon, but Rodney doubted it. The luggage was deposited by the door, and John deposited himself on the couch with a relaxed sigh.

"Nice couch, Rodney," he breathed, sinking into the thick cushions. He then grinned. "I call it."

"Oh no you don't," Rodney said, heading into the kitchen. "You get the bed, I get the couch. Ronon can have the inflatable bed."

"I can sleep on the floor," Ronon said, wandering the house, looking everything over. He still wore his leather coat, but under that had on a plain white T-shirt and a pair of jeans. The women at the SGC had nearly dropped dead from all the blushing and trying not to ogle. Damn Ronon's chick-magnet ways. The man could have been wearing a pink shirt with Tinkerbell on it and still pull of the rugged wild man look all the women swooned over. It was the hair, always the hair – spiked and messy or tied up in dreads. Damn chick-magnet hair.

"Hey, I bought the thing, the least you can do is sleep on it." Rodney pulled a pan from one of the bottom cupboards, then a frozen pizza from the freezer. "You'll like it, better than an actual mattress."

"Then why don't you sleep on it?" Ronon challenged.

Rodney ripped the wrapping from the pizza, plopped it on the pan, and shoved it into the oven. "Because I don't like sleeping close to the floor." He then opened the fridge and checked how cold the cans of soda were. There was to be no alcohol for John while he was taking painkillers, and it wasn't exactly fair to torment him by guzzling beer while he was resigned to Pepsi, Coke, or milk.

When Rodney stepped out of the kitchen it was to see Ronon standing in front of the TV.

"This the box your people watch all the time?" he asked.

Rodney answered by heading to the TV to grab the remote and turn it on. He then pointed out the remote's function. "These buttons change the channel, this one turns up the sound, and this one turns it down. I'm surprised Sheppard didn't show you."

Ronon took the control and began flipping. "He's asleep."

Rodney turned to see John's head lulled back against the cushions, his mouth gaped open in a quiet snore. Rodney pursed his lips. "Help me out."

Ronon set the control down and moved with Rodney to the couch. Rodney took John's head while Ronon took his feet, and they gently maneuvered him so that he was stretched out across the couch. Rodney tucked a throw pillow under his head, then went to the hall closet and grabbed a dark green blanket to drape over John. Ronon had returned to flipping through the channels. Sherbet was running all over the place dragging the leash behind him. Rodney decided to leave it on since it made the mir'ka easier to find.

Rodney dropped himself into the easy chair adjacent to the couch, and let out a sharp breath. He leaned his head back, and closed his eyes for a light doze. He snapped awake to the ding of the oven timer, and hauled his stiff body out of the chair to fetch the pizza. He grabbed an oven mit from a drawer and pulled the pizza from the oven, setting it on the stove top. It was already cut into slices, so he got out a wooden tray to set the pan on. He then gathered paper plates, forks, knives, and three sodas from the fridge, shifting everything constantly as he transferred it all to the coffee table.

"Foods on!" he announced. Ronon perked like a dog hearing the can opener. Sheppard, however, took a little longer to rouse. By the time he did, Rodney and Ronon were already dished up, Rodney with two slices, and Ronon with three. John pushed himself up into a sitting position, shoving the blanket aside and smiling tiredly.

"Hey," he said. "Pizza."

He put four slices on a plate. Rodney and Ronon stared at him in slight slack-jawed incredulity. John just shrugged.

"What? I'm starved."

Ronon grinned, and Rodney just shook his head. Sherbet ran up, grabbed a slice off the pan, and ran off.

"Hey!" Rodney barked.

John chuckled softly. "I think he's earned that slice, Rodney."

"Not if he's going to get it all over the carpet."

As though in answer to that, Sherbet took it into the kitchen and inhaled the thing. Rodney waved dismissively. Ronon picked up the remote he'd set on the coffee table and started flipping again. When it landed on a football game, John beamed. "Hey."

"Oh no way!" Rodney reached out trying to snag the remote from Ronon, who held it just out of reach. He then flipped the channel again.

John stiffened. "Hey!"

The show he landed on was...

"Conan the Barbarian," Rodney said with narrow eyes. John doubled over in hooting laughter, while Ronon arched an eyebrow.

"I don't look like that guy," he growled, shooting McKay a scathing look. McKay rolled his eyes and dropped back into his chair with a rather defeated sigh.

"This is going to be a long vacation."

The End

A/N: It's over, Wahhhh! Hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing it. And by the reviews, I can assume you did. It really was a blast to write. I'm even contemplating a sequel – well, more like a tag, because the idea of Ronon at a county fair, contemplating the smelly horned animals people call cows, is too amusing to pass up.


End file.
